Clubbing/Night Event photography.

[edwinlimlx]

I believe it's a little similar to night portraits. However I've not take them before.
Need you CS'er advice me on any handy tips. Esp those whom had taken before night events or somewhat similar. Would be gd, if there's any reference.

And also, technique for the shots. As recently just bought my flash Canon EX 580II, not very sure how to bounce a perfect lighting. What lens to use, amt to compensate or gears to bring.

Kindly Advice. thanks~

 

[edwinlimlx]

no one? hmmm

 

[Shin Howard]

Hi Edwin, I'm not a pro. But just to share my thoughts.

I don't think there's such thing as Perfect bounce, but rather good/sufficient or bad/insufficient.
Try to use bounce the flash off the ceilling/wall, if too high or not reachable.
Then you might need a Bounce card. Cause direct flash will be too harsh on the subject.

Other than that, you also need a wide angle Lens.
Cause indoor, the space is pretty much restricted.
Supposing you have a 24-70mm Lens on a 1.6x crop factor, then you maybe have difficultives capturing a wide view.

 

[zac08]

I believe it's a little similar to night portraits. However I've not take them before.
Need you CS'er advice me on any handy tips. Esp those whom had taken before night events or somewhat similar. Would be gd, if there's any reference.

And also, technique for the shots. As recently just bought my flash Canon EX 580II, not very sure how to bounce a perfect lighting. What lens to use, amt to compensate or gears to bring.

Kindly Advice. thanks~

NO fix or definite way to do everything...

You have to understand the scene you are going to take and compensate accordingly. In clubs, they may not allow you to use flash and in such scenarios, you're left only to shoot wide open with high ISO.

Check where u can bounce off... is the ceiling too high? Does it have colours as the bounced flash will reflect those colours onto the subject. Bouncing off walls, same thing...

Practise at home in your room at night and see if you can even focus properly first.

 

[Anson]

If you are looking for a non-DSLR for night shot, it is worth checking out the Panasonic LX3 which have a F2.0 aperture.

 

[liquidityzero]

I occasionally shoot at Zouk with my DSLR while partying with my friends. Will use Stofen Omnibounce on my SB-600 for portability sake, or if you don't mind people staring.....make your own bounce card(abetterbouncecard.com), will give you a nicer spread of light. I still use my 18-70mm kit lens, but ideally low light lens such as a 17-50mm f/2.8 or a 30mm f/1.4 lens would been real nice for club & event photography. Aperture can range from wide open to f/4, ISO settings around 800-1600, and shutter speed around 1/10 or lower, so that u can drag the camera in any direction when u fire...to give the cool light trail effect while your flash captures your front subjects.

 

[edwinlimlx]

I occasionally shoot at Zouk with my DSLR while partying with my friends. Will use Stofen Omnibounce on my SB-600 for portability sake, or if you don't mind people staring.....make your own bounce card(abetterbouncecard.com), will give you a nicer spread of light. I still use my 18-70mm kit lens, but ideally low light lens such as a 17-50mm f/2.8 or a 30mm f/1.4 lens would been real nice for club & event photography. Aperture can range from wide open to f/4, ISO settings around 800-1600, and shutter speed around 1/10 or lower, so that u can drag the camera in any direction when u fire...to give the cool light trail effect while your flash captures your front subjects.

Cool~ this is the kind of response i'm looking for. I know there's no definite style, or way of shooting. But would just like to hear such camera settings.

Another question. if you using flash, do you use diffuser instead of card bounce? do you point the flash direct at the subject? as i believe, there won't have any wall/ceiling for you to bounce the flash. :think:

 

[ungku]

I'm a club photographer by trade. Some tips when you are taking general pictures of people.

- Shoot as high iso as your camera will allow you... most new dslr can handle iso1600 and above with no problem. Im shooting iso 3200 regularly on my new cam.

- Go as slow with your shutter speed as your hands will allow you. Ive shot at 1sec exposures before and thats about my limit. Generally for new guys, 1/3 to 1/10 sec is fine for iso 1600 and below... above iso1600, u will need a faster shutter speed to compensate for the amount of light coming in. Adjust to your own taste

- Unless u like harsh lighting on your subjects, use a light modifier on your flash. Any bounce card will do fine. Dial in your exposure compensation.. You will have to experiment to achieve your desired result and taste.

- Lens selection, the faster the lens the better. f2.8 and below for the best results. On a cropped sensor, 18mm should be fine enough for wide group shots. This is very important because clubs are very very crowded places and you will very rarely have enough space to back up to squeeze everybody in. Just remember to stop down to get enough dof for the whole group. f3.5/f4 should be enough. Dont forget to compensate you shutter speed as well for the loss of light.

 

[liquidityzero]

Cool~ this is the kind of response i'm looking for. I know there's no definite style, or way of shooting. But would just like to hear such camera settings.

Another question. if you using flash, do you use diffuser instead of card bounce? do you point the flash direct at the subject? as i believe, there won't have any wall/ceiling for you to bounce the flash. :think:

It's best not to direct the flash directly at the subject....because it can cause the skin tones to become too washed out and may look kind of flat. Normally I just set my flash head with the Omnibounce at around 45 degree angle pointing upwards if the ceiling is lower than just fire, if not sometime I will use the small little bounce card within my SB-800 if I never bring my Omnibounce. Another light modifer I use is the Demb Flip-It Pro, which is basically a more expensive bounce card. I have seen some club photographers use a Gary Fong Lightsphere & Whaletail on their flash heads as well, those are really nice for club photography.

Actually the best way to get nice lighting is to use a TTL hotshoe flash cord, and do off camera lighting with your flash. Have you ever visited www.streetthing.com? Check out some of the club shots here http://www.streething.com/archives/4467#more-4467
I have spoken to the photographer there before, he actually takes the flash off the camera and attaches a Lumiquest Big Bounce flash diffuser to his flash unit, hence getting that nice soft lighting and u get to play with the different angles of light. As ungku said above... f/4 or lower, 1/10 on iso1600 is a nice setting to use with lots of ambient light going into the picture, producing very vivid tones.

 

[Mystix]

Hi, sorry to dig up this old thread.
So there have been advises to go as slow as possible. But in a club environment theres bound to be lotsa movements hence movement blur. So i presume this is conscious intention on most club photographer's part? Does that mean for club shots, taking sharp pics are rare and movement blur is more the norm so as to get the intended movement feel?

 

[iRaphael]

personally, when i shoot in low light clubbing type of events, i would use a diffuser cap on my flash and angle it from around 0 degrees to about 60 degrees.

then, i would shoot at around ISO 1000-1600.

my aperture is usually f/5.6, with a shutter of 1/15 to create the light streaks effect. of course that would be coupled with a 2nd curtain sync.

but if im just taking plain clear pictures of people, everything else constant, but shutter would be about 1/50.

that's how i shoot though.

 

[AMediaLuz]

Does anyone konw if a F1.8 85mm or a F1.4 50mm at iso1600 is sufficient to capture people dancing in clubs without the use of flash? The shuttlespeed can't be too slow as well, because there will be motions, (say 1/60 or faster).

If so, I am thinking of getting either one of them lens, because my kit lens doesn't have that large an aperture. I also try not to use flash because most people don't like it when they are dancing.