Club photography - which lens?

mark_wilson

mark_wilson

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I have been doing a lot of nightclub work for a couple of mates that run there own club night recently. Im now looking into getting a wide angle lens for my canon 450d as so far i have just been using my 18-55mm.

Iv looked through the jessops website at my options. Not sure which is the best choice to go for? Im looking to spend about £550 max, maybe a wee bit more for the right one! How would a fish eye lens do in a nightclub enviroment?
 
Hi, this is what I actually do.
Your focal lens of what you have now would actually be ok. I worked with a 17-50 f2.8 but more recently I have used a sigma 28-70 f2.8.
There are some that use wide angle 10-22mm but not got for oppertunity shots.

The main thing you need is a flash and a good one. The camera one just wont cut it. I am not sure what f-stop your lens is but you will find f2.8 would work alot better in low light. So if you decide to get something make sure its around f2.8 (not tried lower)

Hope that helps!
 
Hi mate, thanks for your advice. Although i have seen the differance between shots taken with a standard lens and a wide angle. And definetly prefer the wide angle ones.
Im using a 430 flashgun, so sorted with that :)

Any more advice?
 
Brooksy said:
Hi, this is what I actually do.
Your focal lens of what you have now would actually be ok. I worked with a 17-50 f2.8 but more recently I have used a sigma 28-70 f2.8.
There are some that use wide angle 10-22mm but not got for oppertunity shots.

The main thing you need is a flash and a good one. The camera one just wont cut it. I am not sure what f-stop your lens is but you will find f2.8 would work alot better in low light. So if you decide to get something make sure its around f2.8 (not tried lower)

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Sorry to hijack but if your using flash, why stick to f2.8? wouldn't the extra DOF of something like f5.6 or even just f4 work better?
 
Dal said:
Sorry to hijack but if your using flash, why stick to f2.8? wouldn't the extra DOF of something like f5.6 or even just f4 work better?
Click to expand...

:agree:

I have a particular look I would like to do using flash photography and have been trying to get to grips with the settings to use ..... most confusing is that it seems this type of photography is "hit & miss" as the lighting is changing so rapidly .... still trying to work out if it's best to use slow sync/rear sync/slow rear sync/normal etc...... :bang: :nuts:

Paul
 
Dal said:
Sorry to hijack but if your using flash, why stick to f2.8? wouldn't the extra DOF of something like f5.6 or even just f4 work better?
Click to expand...

I have tried higher and found that f2.8 works much better than higher ones. I have never tried lower than 2.8 so can not comment on it.

I suppose really you just have to play around and find whats good for you. Every club is different.

This is obviously help from my experiance.
 
Any more help on what lens i should go for? Really needing to sort one out soon :)
 
I personally wouldn't recommend either of those for nightclub photography, as they probably won't offer any real advantage over your kit lens! In this case, I'd say you don't need a fast lens, the flash will freeze the subject, and the rest of the exposure will pick up the ambient light, make nice patterns and colourful swirls. A faster lens will allow you to use a shorter shutter speed to capture the ambient light, but this might mean the trails will be shorter, depending on the situation.

The way I see it there are two options, get a wideangle lens to offer a different type of shot, or get a faster lens, like a 17-50 f/2.8 so you can capture plenty of ambient light without long trails using a shorter shutter speed.

Anything past 50mm you might find is too long in a club, as you might not have that much room to work in!

Chris
 
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