What settings do you use for parties?

[norahbattie]

I photographed my second event yesterday and I was wondering what settings everyone uses to photograph events (parties, weddings etc). Do you use aperture priority or put in manual and override?
Also what settings do you use on your flash? I use ETTL with a+2/3

Any other tips? :rules:
Thanks
Nadira

 

[Shine On]

Surely that is the most open question in the world, and frankly pointless with some idea of specific conditions?

Indoors, outdoors, well lit, dim, are you close up, stood back, aiming for posed shots/candid, is this for friends/private paying clients/corporate work........

 

[norahbattie]

Surely that is the most open question in the world, and frankly pointless with some idea of specific conditions?

Indoors, outdoors, well lit, dim, are you close up, stood back, aiming for posed shots/candid, is this for friends/private paying clients/corporate work........

I guess it is

Indoors, dim, stood back & close up. Posed and candid.
All aimed for friends, am no good for paying clients/corporate

 

[Boopop]

I was working at a nightclub last night, a big flashgun bouncing off the wall and auto mode seem to do just fine for me. Lazy but there isn't much of a need to do anything more, unless your friends like art more than they want to see photos of themselves, in which case try whatever you like!

To make it more interesting I'd go for some peculiar angles too, as in from above, from below, that sort of thing.

 

[vaizki]

I rarely use flash unless it's a "let's take a picture of everyone around the table" or similar.. just snapping away during the evening, it's high ISO, Av mode and the Sigma 30/1.4 for me. Usually shoot at f/1.8 or f/2, very rarely wide open. And the closer I am, the smaller the aperture needs to be to get any DoF.. so I just shoot a LOT of pictures and hope that some come out ok

Keeper rate is low of course, with only available light.

 

[markw08]

In your info you have a 5D mkii so you could crank up the iso...

or

This info was given to me by tdodd last year, for use indoors at a party....

Manual, 1/60, F8, Flash on TTL, ISO 400...

Just adjust shutter speed and iso for ambient light as F8 controls the flash light on the subject...

 

[HoppyUK]

Need to post a pic Nadira, should be easy enough to see what your options are. Every situation is different, though the techniques are generally the same - just how you apply them.

 

[loplyg]

Bounce flash off ceiling, about 1/60th, f4.

I like to shoot parties with friends wide, for me its a photo of a party, not a photo of a person within a party, but each to their own.

 

[tdodd]

In your info you have a 5D mkii so you could crank up the iso...

or

This info was given to me by tdodd last year, for use indoors at a party....

Manual, 1/60, F8, Flash on TTL, ISO 400...

Just adjust shutter speed and iso for ambient light as F8 controls the flash light on the subject...

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I do not believe I would ever have recommended shooting at f/8 for such things. If you can point out the post where I said that then I'd be grateful. Those settings might conceivably be useful for nightclub photography, but I would never shoot like that at a typical indoor/evening event such as a party or wedding. I'd usually be at around 1/60, f/2.8, 1600 ISO with bounced ETTL flash for such things. Heck, at times I've even been at 3200 ISO.

This is what 1/60, f/2.8, 1600 ISO plus bounced flash looks like....

f/8 and 400 ISO will have the background looking like an unlit cave. That's not a look I aim for.

EDIT : Just found this post - http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=2625319&postcount=16 - and back then my reaction was similar. However, at least in that post I was credited with 800-1600 ISO, and that was for a "disco", not a "party". Where did only 400 ISO suddenly appear from? Disco = Nightclub. Disco ¬= party/wedding. For a disco/nightclub there isn't much in the way of ambient light to pick up. It is more important to preserve some of the colour from the light display. That's why you reduce the ambient exposure for a nightclub. For a party/reception I would think you would want to pull in the background at a reasonable level and not leave it as a featureless pit of darkness.

EDIT 2 : Found this thread - http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=164397 - and unless I've gone blind I have not spotted any recommendation to shoot at f/8.

 

[markw08]

Sorry Tim...

I take it all back, it should be F2.8 not F8....

I should have looked back at the old posts...not relied on 10 months old memory...

 

[tdodd]

No worries. I just didn't want anyone to be misled. I was also a bit concerned that I might have gone mad. Anyway, all sorted.

 

[norahbattie]

Sorry just gone back to work full time and been so busy not had a chance to upload any photos here, as soon as I have a spare moment I will upload some for you to take a look at. I shot at f4, ISO 800 and shutter speed of 1/60th with flash on ETTL and still got loads of noise and black background. I swear something is going wrong

 

[tdodd]

f/4 is not f/2.8 and 800 ISO is not 1600 ISO, so you are 2 stops dimmer than my starting point for exposures indoors in the evening. My shot in the post above was taken with a 30D and is unedited except white balance. As far as noise is concerned I consider it perfectly usable. If you are seeing unacceptable noise from a 5D2 then you are almost certainly underexposing, which is a cardinal sin. The presence of dark (black) backgrounds would tend to confirm that that is your problem.

If you can't open up wider than f/4 then bump the ISO. A properly exposed shot at 3200 ISO will be far better to work with than a badly (say 2 stops) underexposed shot at 800 ISO. If you need to go to 6400 ISO then do it.

This is an unedited (apart from white balance) shot from my 7D at 6400 ISO. I have no complaints regarding noise. The 5D2 should be even better.

 

[HoppyUK]

As Tim said really. The dark background and noise sounds like under exposure.

If you use Av, that will automatically track the background exposure as long as it needs to go. If that results in too long a shutter speed with a danger of excessive blur, then you have bags of high ISO capability on a 5D2, plus noise reduction, and you also have a 50mm f/1.4 lens so there's really no need to go there.

Were you on P? That will stop the shutter speed dropping below 1/60sec to avoid blur, in the belief that letting the background simply go dark is a better option (mistakenly in this case). But you have the ISO and f/number capability to avoid that.

 

[unclened]

adding on to the solid advice given already by HoppyUK and tdodd on settings, i would say that if you think about it conceptually indoor event photography is not very different to daytime/outdoor photography. Only difference is you are working with a lot less available light. My approach would be to expose for the scene (including backgrounds) so that they are reasonably well lit and then lift the shadows/scene and your foreground elements by bouncing flash of the ceiling or a wall. Working in M is perfect for these type of scenes as you 'lock' away your settings and leave flash on ETTL to do the rest of the work. If your ceiling is fairly high, the flash has to travel further so dial in extra exposure compensation on the flash and vice versa if the ceiling is low.

Hopefully this will explain the technique/concept of why those settings may work well.

 

[norahbattie]

Thank you again for your advice Again so busy at work not had a chance to get on here...joys of being a junior doctor Out at 6.30 and just back home exhausted! Promise to post here soon as soon as I get a moment to show you what I mean about my photos.

Another question for you...
I managed to touch my sensor with the windblower (looks like tiny scratches) can this be fixed or is my camera buggered? It doesn't appear on photos or anything..bit petrified i have ruined my beloved camera

 

[tdodd]

Another question for you...
I managed to touch my sensor with the windblower (looks like tiny scratches) can this be fixed or is my camera buggered? It doesn't appear on photos or anything..bit petrified i have ruined my beloved camera

Hard to say without seeing it, and even then I'm no expert, but hopefully you have done no permanent harm. The sensor is covered by a protective glass filter, which ought to easily withstand a gentle touch from a plastic blower. You've probably left a tiny bit of cack (grease) there, which should hopefully come off with a well executed wet (maybe even dry) clean. If you can't see the problem in your photos then I doubt very much you have a big problem. Just to be sure, try stopping down to f/22 and then taking a picture of a plain subject, such as the sky. That will allow you to see whether there is an issue, but it's likely a proper clean will resolve any problem if you have one.

This is something you can do for yourself. I've only had to do a wet clean once in four years, but it all went smoothly enough. I don't know what the latest state of art is in cleaning techniques, but back when I did my clean the "Copperhill Method" was the one that everyone was recommending. If you don't want to go wet then for only a little money you might try a SensorKlear pen, like a Lenspen, but designed specifically for sensors. Do not confuse the two. You do not want the cack from the front of your lens getting mashed into the sensor.

 

[unclened]

Thank you again for your advice Again so busy at work not had a chance to get on here...joys of being a junior doctor Out at 6.30 and just back home exhausted! Promise to post here soon as soon as I get a moment to show you what I mean about my photos.

Another question for you...
I managed to touch my sensor with the windblower (looks like tiny scratches) can this be fixed or is my camera buggered? It doesn't appear on photos or anything..bit petrified i have ruined my beloved camera

are you certain its the sensor? you would normally have to fold the mirror up (which is spring loaded) and then get access to the sensor. Do you recall doing that? Also if you can see it but its not showing up in photos, I think you may be referring to the mirror or focussing screen.

 

[norahbattie]

are you certain its the sensor? you would normally have to fold the mirror up (which is spring loaded) and then get access to the sensor. Do you recall doing that? Also if you can see it but its not showing up in photos, I think you may be referring to the mirror or focussing screen.

Oooh you are right its the focussing screen..opposite the mirror without lifting it up. Doh!

 

[Te Amo]

Manual mode. Manual flash. Expose and compensate accordingly.

 

[unclened]

Oooh you are right its the focussing screen..opposite the mirror without lifting it up. Doh!

in that case, no problems, shoot away as it wont show on photos, but do get a rocket blower and take care of it, its almost identical to checking someones blood pressure, but instead of mercury going up, you blow air out of the nozzle You dont want the dust specks to go walkies and find a home on your nice static charged sensor.

 

[AliB]

lol @ the blood pressure comment!

Another vote around ISO 800 1/60 f4. Flash on ETTL. That's my normal starting point and adjust from there depending on what the ambient is like.

 

[norahbattie]

Wowzers!!! Just finished a manic 80 hour week to start a new one in less than 10 hours So I have finally had a chance to upload a photo for you guys to have a look at. I wanted something a little unusual rather than the normal posey shots, this was taken with a 35 mm wide open but as you can see lots of noise What to do???

 

[norahbattie]

in that case, no problems, shoot away as it wont show on photos, but do get a rocket blower and take care of it, its almost identical to checking someones blood pressure, but instead of mercury going up, you blow air out of the nozzle You dont want the dust specks to go walkies and find a home on your nice static charged sensor.

that is too funny, I can fix blood pressure I just can't fix my camera

 

[HoppyUK]

Wowzers!!! Just finished a manic 80 hour week to start a new one in less than 10 hours So I have finally had a chance to upload a photo for you guys to have a look at. I wanted something a little unusual rather than the normal posey shots, this was taken with a 35 mm wide open but as you can see lots of noise What to do???

<snip>

I've seen far worse Nad.

Technical details please. Metering, exposure mode, shutter speed, f/number, ISO, noise reduction on/off, any post processing etc.

Is that bounce flash? Have you cropped the image?

 

[tdodd]

EXIF is all there - Manual exposure at f/1.4, 1/640, 6400 ISO, no flash. It has also had some jiggery pokery in post, including increases to Brightness, Contrast and Clarity, each of which may well make noise look worse. Sharpening has been left at defaults, with no mask added to reduce sharpening on plain areas.

One has to wonder whether 1/640 was really necessay, especially with a 35mm lens. Why not 1/320 at 3200 ISO, or 1/160 at 1600 ISO, 1/80 at 800 ISO or, maybe, 1/40 at 400 ISO?

It seems to me there really was no need to have noise, if only more appropriate settings had been selected. I also think it is hard to make a judgement about the photography itself when the file has had so many edits before display. There are others that I did not mention. I would be curious to see what the noise looks like in the original, unedited raw file.

 

[norahbattie]

Straight out of the tin, be prepared for your sunglasses

I actually had my flash attached to my canon 50D at the time and got a spare 30 seconds to shoot her so went behind hence no flash attached...the reason for such a high shutter speed is that she was moving so much I was getting blurred photos and wanted it sharp.

How do I reduce down the noise? I still have her wedding to shoot on Sunday so will be grateful for your advice. She is a close friend who wanted me to do her wedding I did try to talk her out of it But she wouldn't listen :bang:

anyway here goes:

 

[POAH]

depends on the light

I photographed my second event yesterday and I was wondering what settings everyone uses to photograph events (parties, weddings etc). Do you use aperture priority or put in manual and override?
Also what settings do you use on your flash? I use ETTL with a+2/3

Any other tips? :rules:
Thanks
Nadira

 

[tdodd]

Nad, I prefer the second version without edits. It is a little warm and I think would benefit from a white balance adjustment, but I don't think it was necessary to make all those other tweaks you did in the first version. Then again, you want to satisfy your artistic vision, not mine.

I'm not sure I understand your point about having the flash but not using it. If you were to bounce the flash I do not see why your position relative to the subject is important. Quite simply you can add light to the scene overall. You would not want to use direct flash aimed straight towards the subject.

Regarding shutter speed for the subject, I have to say I had no clue she was moving. From the shot it looks like she is just standing or sitting in front of you. If she had been dancing then I can understand the benefit of a higher shutter speed, but there is no impression in this shot of dancing or any movement at all. Given that, I wonder whether you couldn't have picked a different moment to shoot her, when she wasn't moving so much, or at all.

Anyway, you have what you have. At this size I'm not seeing much in the way of offensive noise. Your use of f/1.4 has given you a very shallow DOF, so there is not much in focus at all. Therefore you should really take a look at your sharpening. There is no point applying sharpening to the OOF areas. You only need to sharpen the details that should be sharp, in the jewellery, the scarf and her eyes. For everything else you should use a sharpening mask to prevent sharpening in the OOF areas, which is where noise will make itself most obvious. Once you have tailored your sharpening you can then consider additional noise reduction if you think you need it. I'm sure that in CS4 there are many ways to approach the problem, but as I only use Lightroom I can't advise you on the best options available. There are basic NR controls in ACR and I imagine further options within Photoshop itself. You could also consider third party NR plugins.

If you can make the raw file available somewhere I would be happy to see what I can do with it using Lightroom.

 

[norahbattie]

I will post it to 4shared once I have a bit of time, thanks for this

 

[dubcat]

lol @ the blood pressure comment!

Another vote around ISO 800 1/60 f4. Flash on ETTL. That's my normal starting point and adjust from there depending on what the ambient is like.

Ooh Ali I thought your starting point was f8 1/60s iso400.

Did I get that wrong!? If so the combo I mentioned does still seem to work really well. Please do let me know as I mentioned this as a tip on my blog (which no one else reads but I use as a reference notepad for myself) and I don't want to misquote you.

 

[tdodd]

Ooh Ali I thought your starting point was f8 1/60s iso400.

I don't know what you guys are smoking, but do you have any idea how little ambient light those settings will pick up? Your flash will be doing all the work.

Here's what 1/60, f/8, 400 ISO looks like in a daylit room.

That exposure might be OK for outdoors on an overcast day, but for a party in dim conditions.... are you nuts? No offence

Now here's 1/60, f/2.8, 1600 ISO....

Now, that exposure may not leave much, if anything, for a flash to do, but this is a daylit room, not an indoor party at night with inadequate tungsten lamps providing the ambient lighting.

 

[dubcat]

Tim,

The settings I mentioned were to go with a flash lol! Also, the events I used those settings at were better lit than your living room! Those settings balanced ambient and ettl flash perfectly at the 4 weddings I attended as a guest since learning about them. In fact they saved my skin when my parents asked me to photograph them with a celeb who was being ushered along by his security and I had no time to chimp.

Now I'll put the crack pipe down but only if you promise to do the same brother

Ps. Please don't tar Ali with the same crack smoking brush as me. It seems I may have got her suggested settings totally wrong even though do work perfectly for Asian weddings!

 

[tdodd]

Amir, in post #3 Nads clarified that the enquiry was related to indoor, dim shooting. The example (s)he provided in post #27 was at 1/640, f/1.4, 6400 ISO, which is equivalent to 1/40, f/2.8, 1600 ISO.

So (s)he and I are talking about similar light levels. If your conditions are significantly brighter, so much brighter in fact that you can shoot at 1/60, f/8, 400 ISO, even with flash, then I don't think you are on the same page as Nads and I. We're talking about a difference in ambient exposure of 5 stops or more.

Can you show an unedited example from one of these shots at 1/60, f/8, 400 ISO, taken indoors after dark (which is when parties usually take place)?

EDIT : Sorry, Nads, I have no idea if you are male or female. "Nads" is not a name I am familiar with.

 

[dubcat]

Tim-

Ali's comment was about flash and that is what i quoted in my post.

Why are you asking for an unedited picture? Those settings are simply a starting point which allowed me to get useable pictures before i started to adjust settings based on what i was seeing on the LCD, something which is not always possible. By useable i mean they are recoverable in Lightroom without any MAJOR editing.

 

[menthel]

I have use the 1/60, f/8, iso 400 thing before in restaurants and all you really do get is the people and the immediate area lit by the flash. It does end up looking a lot like a P&S piccy that way.

 

[tdodd]

Tim-

Ali's comment was about flash and that is what i quoted in my post.

Why are you asking for an unedited picture?

Simply because the examples I've shown are unedited. If the purpose of this thread is for Nads to understand the setting people use, it might help to see the results they achieve with those settings, before fiddling about with them. There's little point in saying that 1/60, f/8, 400 ISO hits the spot if the images then need a stop or two of boosting in post. Also, if the photos have an unappealing (or indeed an appealing) balance of lighting it might be useful for that to be demonstrated.

I'm not picking on you in person, but there have been a couple of references in this thread to using f/8 and low ISOs and I just don't get it. Where are these suggestions coming from? To me they do not make sense for indoors shooting in dim conditions and I do not understand how they are helpful to the original question posed by Nads. If people are really getting good results with such settings then I'd love to see the results - before editing. Perhaps I will have my own eyes opened to a different approach.

 

[tdodd]

I have use the 1/60, f/8, iso 400 thing before in restaurants and all you really do get is the people and the immediate area lit by the flash. It does end up looking a lot like a P&S piccy that way.

Exactly!

 

[dubcat]

This photo was taken at night in a small hall with those settings. It is completely unedited apart from size reduction to fit in forum rules. I know it's not great but for me it provides a good start... at least I thought so until now.

 

[dubcat]

I don't think parties happen only at night - so here is a photo from a hall during day where there was light coming in from one wall only. Again using those settings.

As far needing adjustment - as I said it's a good starting point. If you don't have time to chimp you do need a starting point imho.. again.. i am now re-evaluating my thoughts in the face of much much greater knowledge than mine.