Help with low light situations anyone?

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rob275

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Rob
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So I have been rendered with a challenge, that I am more than happy to take up. But i don't want to go in blindly and produce poor results.

Heres the situation, i will be doing photography within a nightclub of what i can only describe as live portraiture of a DJ. I haven't done any nightclub photography let alone of a live DJ.

If anyone has experience in this or suggestions on what settings to use to obtain the best photos possible, This would be appreciated!

Thanks

Rob. (y)
 
Tom Gancarz said:
Hi
You have few options but if you tell us what camera have you got, we will know how far you can push ISO. Do you have full frame camera?

Tom
Click to expand...

Also what lenses/flashes do you have?
 
I have a d700, no flash at the moment. Lenses I have a 50mm f1.8, and was looking to get a wide angle zoom also.
 
You'll likely need a flash! Although the D700 is very good at high ISO.
 
Since you don't have a flash your best option will probably be to use the 50mm at 1.8, choose a reasonable shutter speed and then just adjust ISO to get your exposures.

As EOS JD said, the D700 is great at high ISO, and if you still have too much noise you can clean it up a bit in PP.
 
Flash + rear curtain sync + high f-stop (f/5.6 or higher) + Long shutter speed (around 1/4th to a full second) = awesome light trails with people frozen in motion.
 
I shoot night club photography, always manual. I start at ISO 400 f4 1/60, rear curtain flash sb600 ttl, and gauge from there after a couple of tests.

On a 35mm lens at approx 5' or so I can get couples both in focus at f4, small groups f5.6.

For light trails just drop the shutter speed 1/10 is usually enough if there's a lot of movement. You can pretty much drop that as low as you need and the flash will freeze your subject. If the ambient light picks up too much when you slow down your shutter just lower your ISO

But I would always recommend flash

Good luck and have fun

Danny
 
Hanks for the replies, I've been reading them just haven't had time to reply :) that's a lot of help guys I'll have a play about.

Rob.
 
I agree with the slow sync - you can get some great results for gigs/DJ shots.

The F1.8 will help a lot with the low light so just boost the ISO and worry about the noise later!

I find Lightroom to have the best noise reduction features... does anyone agree/disagree?
 
only problem with f1.8 is you would struggle to get any more than 1 person in focus. As suggested above use an appropriate aperture for the required dof
 
EOS_JD said:
only problem with f1.8 is you would struggle to get any more than 1 person in focus. As suggested above use an appropriate aperture for the required dof
Click to expand...

Hmmm yes you are totally right - might get away with it if it was just one person and the subject isn't too close to the camera. Low light is a nightmare - there are always trade-offs! I guess you just have to decide what is more important to not have - i.e. shallow DOF, motion bluur, lots of noise! one or two are inevitable - which is the lesser of three evils!
 
It's only the dj that matters in my case... The press pass doesn't give me the right to photograph anyone other than that specified dj... So 1.8 is fine :)
 
Flash will also allow some more creative styles
 
Find your own style tbh, im not particularly into light trails etc. Find them all a bit boring and repetitive now.

Your 50 should yield some pretty cool stuff, get creative with it and think of different angles tbh?

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/5417050887_891c099f4e_b.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/5416983699_ae132f17eb_b.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/5417588230_0ebbbf178e_b.jpg

e.t.c. rather than the normal stuff. Only problem with that photo is she has yellow hands and I've got no real clue how to get rid of them :p Even with ISO 1 billion and shooting wide open you'll still get some movement blur, so try to take 2/3 of each scene then filter through and find the best.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5094/5416988557_455ffcf055_b.jpg

Etc. Get create with angles and have fun is all the advice I can give. Dependant upon how much they love smoke machines you'll find anything further than about 15 feet away will have a horrible white haze. So keep that in mind. Try and get hold of something WIDEE. 10mm etc.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/5417593348_569244746f_b.jpg

All the above is from a couple of nights back. My 70-200 normally doesn't leave my bag. Only other bit of advice I can give you as a DJ is, don't get in the way. Its quite frustrating... Oh, and watch where you step. If the club your going to is anything like where I normally work it's going to be a rats nest of cables :p

//Edit - Oh and shoot in raw.
 
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