Nightclub Photography - How did he do this then?!

F

frontman

Guest
Hey forum, its my first post here, but hi to you all and I'll jump straight in.

I wondered who might have some insights here.

SCENARIO
I am a relatively experienced and happy amateur photographer. I know what I'm doing with a camera most of the time and I am reasonably good with PS/PSE/Lightroom etc. All in all, generally I get by fine and mainly enjoy taking pics of my 2 year old son and making my wife annual photo books and stuff like that.

I recently got asked by a local nightclub to take some pics of their student nights for help with facebook promotion and general marketing.

I have no nightclub photography experience but I have enough general knowledge to do it, I've done low light before of course so I figured I'd give it a whirl and all things considered I got some good shots and the club was happy with what I did. So all good.

2 weeks ago a photographer guy I know covered me as I had to go away for one week, he did a grand job and again, club happy and so on.

However his pics, IMO, are lovely! In fact so lovely I cant quite figure out hows he done it.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT HIS SHOTS
I like the fact that 95% of the time his subjects are in pin sharp focus AND the fact he gets GREAT bokeh too. I asked him what general settings he was on and he said he shot with a Nikon 24-70mm lens on ranging apertures of f2.8-9/11 ish.

WHAT I DONT GET
When I first took shots on my generic, not that great 18-270mm lens at f3.5 I got a nice bokeh but my subjects would start becoming out of focus if I had 3-5 or more people in a kind of line/semi circle in front of me. In the end I went to f9 and 1/10 style shutter speeds for sharpness and ambient light capture so I could just get a nice sharp subject and essentially s*d the bokeh.

How has this guy shot frames that have a stunning shallow DOF yet pin sharp subjects?! Its like the subjects are almost popping off the image.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Cheers folks!
[url]http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/9505/28431625331349802953011.jpg[/URL]
 
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It's a slow shutter speed say 1/4-1/15 of a second with flash synced to fire at the end of the exposure

There is a guide to night club photography in the tutorials section (y)

This is my first attempt a few weeks ago at using the same settings :)


TheDodo by mwhcvt, on Flickr

Welcome to TP :wave:

Matt
MWHCVT
 
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MWHCVT said:
It's a slow shutter speed say 1/4-1/15 of a second with flash synced to fire at the end of the exposure

There is a guide to night club photography in the tutorials section (y)

Welcome to TP :wave:

Matt
MWHCVT
Click to expand...

Thanks mate. Yes, I'm just reading the guide now. I have read many guides in fact and all of them very useful from insightful people.

But I'm kind of asking retrospectively. Whilst guides will certainly assist I'm sure, what bugging me with these shots is 1) He must be on a wide aperture to achieve max bokeh in a short space, so I'm assuming the f2.8 region. Yet if I snap away at f2.8 half my subjects end up unacceptably out of focus.

Oh, and now a follow up question:

I use a Nikon SB-600 flash. Do I need to set the camera to "rear" and the the flash to TTL-BL or just TTL?
And, sorry, the flash will fire upon shutter open AND close, correct?

If someone could help me understand these specific elements I would be very grateful! :)

Cheers!
 
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It's movement of the camera and/or objects in the background causing the blur the photographer was probably using s low ISO and say f/8-11 it's a bit of a weird style as it's not true DoF

I cannot really answer your follow up question as don't know about nikon stuff, but you only want the flash to fire at the end of the exposure not twice
 
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Ok. My understanding was that one was a pre-flash and the other then the exposure flash but maybe I have this wrong.
 
frontman said:
Ok. My understanding was that one was a pre-flash and the other then the exposure flash but maybe I have this wrong.
Click to expand...

The problem with pre-flash is that the subject may think the photo has already been taken and turn away from the camera :shrug:
 
Yes sure, I can see that being an issue. Sorry to plague you, but is this an element that can be turned off so you just have the one rear exposing flash do you know? I'm doing a web search on this too, dont mean to just sit here giving you the 20 questions :)
 
frontman said:
Yes sure, I can see that being an issue. Sorry to plague you, but is this an element that can be turned off so you just have the one rear exposing flash do you know? I'm doing a web search on this too, dont mean to just sit here giving you the 20 questions :)
Click to expand...

I would assume that if I can do it with my canon flash gun you must be able to do it with a nikon one as, as much as we canon and nikon users like to joke about which is the better systems we all know they basically have the same features, I think it would be called something like rear sync or rear curtain flash :thinking: I'm sure someone will be able to advise better than I (y)
 
Ok cool. I'll see what comes up. Thanks for your kind input :)
 
Although good, the photos don't look anything out of the ordinary.

I achieve very similar looking shots at f4.5, 1/5th, iso 1000 and +1 flash EV.
That's particular for where i shoot, but you get the idea.

There is also an element of luck involved two. With overhead disco lights moving around and changing colour/flashing, you can't guarantee every shot will come out perfect. I tend to set my camera to machine gun mode and take maybe 3 shots of each scene and pick the best to use.

Also, for what it may be worth, i have never needed to use rear curtain flash to achieve any better results.

As an example, here are a couple i took Saturday night at Hedkandi.

TALK+053.jpg


TALK+039.jpg
 
Wonderful. Thanks very much for the reply. Your NC photography is fantastic btw hence me plucking it up to ask you lol. Hope that's ok!?

I found it interesting that you put the flash up +1EV as I have for some reason been dropping the flash to -0.3-0.7EV, maybe even -1EV as I was finding I was getting "hotspots" on the subjects faces?! I use a Stofen (or similar) diffuser too btw with the head usually at a 45 degree to vertical angle.

Any obvious points to consider when thinking about flash values? i.e. for a +1EV should you therefore be min. x feet away? And would you have pointed it directly at the subject when you were using yours?

Cheers Dave!
 
I did reply to your pm last night, did you not get it?

The +1 flash exposure just suits my style. I tend to set my camera to slightly under expose and then up the flash to bring it back, it works for my style. The slightly over exposed skin tend to appear smoother and more flattering, which keeps the girls happy, and the darkened backgrounds make the subjects stand out.

I also shoot with OCF, so i can adjust flash power very quickly just by moving the flash closer of further away and introduce some shadow which adds a little extra interest.
 
Morning mate. No I didnt get your PM, I'm sorry. I will check now and take a look. Again interesting about the +/- setup you have there. Might be worth taking a look. I'm thinking that maybe a default setting of -0.7EV with a bit of lightening PP might be my easiest option as physical working distances arent computing with me just yet.
 
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