1st try at nightclub photography

J

jimmy83

Messages
2,154
Name
James
Edit My Images
Yes
Go easy please folks!

First off there was hardly ANY ambient light, now there was a lazer a couple of small down lights-whcih didnt give off much light. DJ booth had UV and a long green stip light and that was it. Very dark in there, and to add to the the smoke machine caused even more issues

The club itself is vsmall celling is probably only 8 foot or so aswell draped in leaf style camo hangings.

So as you can imagine, suffered numerous problems! Could barely see the crowd in my view-finder. Hardly any room to get about, crap lighting.

Anyway here goes...

8243144009_e1e805ee78_c.jpg


8243145641_b984a8e67d_c.jpg


8243146169_26f3e9d66c_c.jpg


8244215410_463ffe4ae1_c.jpg


8244215992_3bb88f3d30_c.jpg


8243148023_964bc8bab4_c.jpg
 
2 and 4 are really good, the others where the issues you mentioned are quite obvious don't really do it for me im afraid. . .

But I really like 2/4 make the club look busy and interesting. . .:)
 
aethelstan927 said:
2 and 4 are really good, the others where the issues you mentioned are quite obvious don't really do it for me im afraid. . .

But I really like 2/4 make the club look busy and interesting. . .:)
Click to expand...

Cheers yeah no.4 is my fav from the album. Just wish there was abit more lightening in the venue. I might be back there on Friday to give it another go.
 
Aye, slow the shutter speed down and use flash and once perfected you'll get your subjects nice and sharp with cool motion blurred backgrounds with decent brightness levels. The trick is not to overdo it but it creates great atmosphere!
 
Yeah I think the main thing I need to work on is the shutter speed and flash. The shutter speed I used ranged from 1/25 1/13 1/10 1/5 sec. I played about with the FEC.

I think from memory if I used a shutter speed of something like half a second the photos jsut came out blurred all of the time :(

Ive tried to go for a dark/grime style of processing to suit the night aswell. Since the music was mostly bass/grime/dubstep
 
jimmy83 said:
I think from memory if I used a shutter speed of something like half a second the photos jsut came out blurred all of the time :(
Click to expand...

If you are using direct flash (stick a diffuser on it) then anyone in the immediate range of the flash should be sharp as the short flash duration will take care of that. What you have to watch out for is using too long a shutter speed as it can cause the ambient to be too bright and overpower the main subject.
 
gman said:
If you are using direct flash (stick a diffuser on it) then anyone in the immediate range of the flash should be sharp as the short flash duration will take care of that. What you have to watch out for is using too long a shutter speed as it can cause the ambient to be too bright and overpower the main subject.
Click to expand...

By direct do you mean, straight at the subject? I think I pointed the flash at the celling for pretty much all of the photos...
 
Yep, I'd probably point it straight at them, perhaps dial it down a touch if necessary but the diffuser will help a little bit. There's so much going on and what with the ambient being bright due to slow shutter speed any shadows from the direct flash should be lost.
 
gman said:
Yep, I'd probably point it straight at them, perhaps dial it down a touch if necessary but the diffuser will help a little bit. There's so much going on and what with the ambient being bright due to slow shutter speed any shadows from the direct flash should be lost.
Click to expand...

Cheers gman, what shutter speed would you suggest generally? I normally stand about 4/5 foot away from the subject, sometimes closer due to limited space...
 
Was back out again shooting at the same venue last night.

Tried loads of different settings again. I really struggled with Rear Curtain Flash Sync (Second Curtain Sync Canon 40d) I tried if for 1sec and sightly slower. But I just can't get the subject-person still in the frame. They always have too much movement.

My understanding of it is that rear curtain should freeze the subject? Any ideas what iam doing wrong? Will post up some examples later.
 
Rear curtain is more about the light trails and making them more natural looking.

For example, if someone is running in the dark from left to right holding a flaming torch, when using 1st curtain sync your flash fires at the start of the shutter opening, therefore your subject is exposed nicely, however the subject continues to run towards the right and the shutter is still open so it's capturing the flaming torch moving across the frame. So you end up with a nicely exposed person on the left side and a light trail from the torch moving in front of the person to the right - unnatural!

2nd curtain sync (or rear) is when the flash fires near the end of the shutter being open. Therefore in the same situation the shutter opens and captures the light trails from the torch moving from the left to the right, but when the flash fires the subject has moved to the right side and is then exposed here by the flash. So you now have an exposed subject on the right with light trails from the flaming torch going out behind to the left - as it naturally should! :)

Ah, here's a link which explains it better: http://neilvn.com/tangents/2010/06/02/first-curtain-sync-vs-rear-curtain-sync/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top