Best settings?

PaulyBolger

Hey guys,

I've been asked to take photos in a nightclub next week but i have no experience at all with this. I'm using a Canon EOS 600D with an external flash.


What would be the best settings for my camera?


Thanks!

sebphoto

Settings? I would stick to 'M', but all depends from:
- lenses
- location / light

Provide some more info and few words about your previous experiences with photography.

pixbyjohn

Manual settings on camera 1/160 shutter speed and f5.6 with flash in upright position as a starter

Prenderb

Reasonably high ISO might be necessary too, maybe 1600?

As a suggestion, you could practice at home with the lights off, get some friends or relations around and ask them to pretend their having fun at a discotheque. :P Take some shots and see how they come out.

Final quality required will depend on the intended use, a little.

Compromising between the ISO and aperture will allow you to extend the depth of field a little, the higher you are willing to allow ISO to go, the smaller aperture you can manage and this will help with the overall sharpness in a picture. At f5.6 you won't be too bad, but try to get to f8 maybe, if you can.

See how it goes in your experiment!

PCPhoto

PaulyBolger wrote: »

Hey guys,

I've been asked to take photos in a nightclub next week but i have no experience at all with this. I'm using a Canon EOS 600D with an external flash.


What would be the best settings for my camera?


Thanks!

people cannot give you the best settings without knowing what the room is like and I'm very surprised people are throwing information at you which you may actually not be able to process... as with most photography its trial and error !!

if the ceiling is high its pointless bouncing the flash (pointing the flash straight up or diagonally up) - assuming your flash can bend.

how much do you know about photography ? are you getting paid for the job or doing it for free ?

Do you know the difference between shutter speeds and apertures ? do you know the relationship between these and also with ISO/ASA ?

Nightclub photography
whats required ??
Balls, Nerve, etc to ask people to pose up (easier done while they are a little intoxicated but not too drunk so its important to pick the right time of night to go into the venue, you dont want to be too early as the place may be relatively empty and you dont want to be too late as people will look sh1tfaced and will jump into pics and possibly damage your camera with a flying/falling pint)

Decent lenses and camera - you will be working in a low light environment, it may be necessary to use flash but you must try to capture the ambience of the room with all the colours so learning about exposure, low shutter speeds and rear curtain flash are very important.

learn and know about your flash - the lower the output of the flash the greater the ambient light is captured.... you may need to change settings fast to its essential you understand how to do this on both your camera and flash.

if its possible go in prior to the night you are "hired" for ...on a practice run and test different shutter speeds, apertures and flash outputs.

if you really wanted to get arty learn various techniques like zooming while taking the photo (assuming the lens is a zoom and not a prime) or spinning the camera , using filters etc ...of course al these can be done in post processing so you might also have to learn how to post process images ...that could take a bit longer.

do you know what the person who "hired' you wants to use the images for ? facebook, advertising the club or to put up on a wall in the club so people will come back the following week to try see their photo....in each case you should get different money...im assuming you are getting money !!

Nerro

PCPhoto wrote: »

people cannot give you the best settings without knowing what the room is like and I'm very surprised people are throwing information at you which you may actually not be able to process... as with most photography its trial and error !!

if the ceiling is high its pointless bouncing the flash (pointing the flash straight up or diagonally up) - assuming your flash can bend.

how much do you know about photography ? are you getting paid for the job or doing it for free ?

Do you know the difference between shutter speeds and apertures ? do you know the relationship between these and also with ISO/ASA ?

Nightclub photography
whats required ??
Balls, Nerve, etc to ask people to pose up (easier done while they are a little intoxicated but not too drunk so its important to pick the right time of night to go into the venue, you dont want to be too early as the place may be relatively empty and you dont want to be too late as people will look sh1tfaced and will jump into pics and possibly damage your camera with a flying/falling pint)

Decent lenses and camera - you will be working in a low light environment, it may be necessary to use flash but you must try to capture the ambience of the room with all the colours so learning about exposure, low shutter speeds and rear curtain flash are very important.

learn and know about your flash - the lower the output of the flash the greater the ambient light is captured.... you may need to change settings fast to its essential you understand how to do this on both your camera and flash.

if its possible go in prior to the night you are "hired" for ...on a practice run and test different shutter speeds, apertures and flash outputs.

if you really wanted to get arty learn various techniques like zooming while taking the photo (assuming the lens is a zoom and not a prime) or spinning the camera , using filters etc ...of course al these can be done in post processing so you might also have to learn how to post process images ...that could take a bit longer.

do you know what the person who "hired' you wants to use the images for ? facebook, advertising the club or to put up on a wall in the club so people will come back the following week to try see their photo....in each case you should get different money...im assuming you are getting money !!

+1 more or less everything got covered over here.

PaulyBolger

PCPhoto wrote: »

people cannot give you the best settings without knowing what the room is like and I'm very surprised people are throwing information at you which you may actually not be able to process... as with most photography its trial and error !!

if the ceiling is high its pointless bouncing the flash (pointing the flash straight up or diagonally up) - assuming your flash can bend.

how much do you know about photography ? are you getting paid for the job or doing it for free ?

Do you know the difference between shutter speeds and apertures ? do you know the relationship between these and also with ISO/ASA ?

Nightclub photography
whats required ??
Balls, Nerve, etc to ask people to pose up (easier done while they are a little intoxicated but not too drunk so its important to pick the right time of night to go into the venue, you dont want to be too early as the place may be relatively empty and you dont want to be too late as people will look sh1tfaced and will jump into pics and possibly damage your camera with a flying/falling pint)

Decent lenses and camera - you will be working in a low light environment, it may be necessary to use flash but you must try to capture the ambience of the room with all the colours so learning about exposure, low shutter speeds and rear curtain flash are very important.

learn and know about your flash - the lower the output of the flash the greater the ambient light is captured.... you may need to change settings fast to its essential you understand how to do this on both your camera and flash.

if its possible go in prior to the night you are "hired" for ...on a practice run and test different shutter speeds, apertures and flash outputs.

if you really wanted to get arty learn various techniques like zooming while taking the photo (assuming the lens is a zoom and not a prime) or spinning the camera , using filters etc ...of course al these can be done in post processing so you might also have to learn how to post process images ...that could take a bit longer.

do you know what the person who "hired' you wants to use the images for ? facebook, advertising the club or to put up on a wall in the club so people will come back the following week to try see their photo....in each case you should get different money...im assuming you are getting money !!

The ceiling is moderately high. I'm 6ft4 and if i stretch my arm up fully, its about 5" away.
I know enough about photography to get me by, the basics if you will. I'm doing the job as a favor but if i do a good job they'll ask me back for more and then i'll be getting paid.
shutter speeds - the slower the more light thats let in on the sensor and the aperture ,
the lower the aperture (in Lehman's terms) will have the main thing in the photo in focus and blur out the background.
What would be a good lens for this?
The images would be all for Facebook to advertise the club.

Homer

Ideally you will want a fast lens (f2.8 on all focal lengths) but if you have standard kit then it is more likely to be f4. Again it depends on the style of shots the club wants. Shooting at f2.8 will soften the background and really highlight the people in the pictures but the venue may want more of the detail of club in the background in focus? A faster lens usually equates to better glass and better quality optics resulting in better pictures.

TTWNF

use a 50MM prime open wide & bump up the ISO...

thebaz

I'm no expert on flash , but I never up the iso when using flash - perhaps someone in the know can confirm , if it is a waste of time upping iso when using flash ??

Kenny Logins

thebaz wrote: »

I'm no expert on flash , but I never up the iso when using flash - perhaps someone in the know can confirm , if it is a waste of time upping iso when using flash ??

I guess bumping the ISO will bring in the ambient light and the flash power will come down to meet it? Curious to know how this works myself...

5uspect

thebaz wrote: »

I'm no expert on flash , but I never up the iso when using flash - perhaps someone in the know can confirm , if it is a waste of time upping iso when using flash ??

You can increase the ISO to get better background illumination.

The flash will typically only illuminate your subject and the near foreground, depending on the guide number so your subject is nice and bright but your background is all dark. Upping the ISO and reducing the flash power helps balance this mismatch out.

Rew

Or drop the shutter speed, flash will freeze the foreground slow shutter will expose the background and generate interesting blurring

JayEnnis

thebaz wrote: »

I'm no expert on flash , but I never up the iso when using flash - perhaps someone in the know can confirm , if it is a waste of time upping iso when using flash ??

You can stop down your aperture or use lower flash powers which equal faster flash durations. It will also bring your ambient up.

I used to shoot in clubs quite a lot, Generally my starting point was 1/30, f/4 @1600. Flash in left hand triggered with P-Wizards or any radio trigger will do. It'll be different depending on venue though.

pixbyjohn

pixbyjohn wrote: »

Manual settings on camera 1/160 shutter speed and f5.6 with flash in upright position as a starter

PCPhoto wrote: »

people cannot give you the best settings without knowing what the room is like and I'm very surprised people are throwing information at you which you may actually not be able to process... as with most photography its trial and error !!

You are back.... My advice was not given as gospel.
Calm down Paddy

allfred

would be nice to use rear curtains flash mode, to give some sense of the movement, and having a certain degree of frozen action.

ImagenEstilo

TTWNF wrote: »

use a 50MM prime open wide & bump up the ISO...

Yep, I would be thinking something along these lines. In essence it would be 80mm on your Canon which is a nice portrait focal length for the people pics. You may need something wider though for the club shots.

Kenny Logins wrote: »

I guess bumping the ISO will bring in the ambient light and the flash power will come down to meet it? Curious to know how this works myself...

ISO, Aperture and Shutter affect ambient exposure. ISO and Aperture affect flash exposure. Upping ISO and opening aperture means more ambient and your TTL flash doesn't have to work as hard, recycling faster. I wrote a wee article on this: TTL Flash Photography

The name of the game here is getting as much ambient light in as possible. So I would turn your flash off to start, crank up the ISO to as high as you will allow it to go in terms of acceptable noise for your personal taste (use Noise Ninja or Neat Image to post process noisy images if needs be). Go to club, get them to turn on lights as they will be during the night, go to the lowest aperture on your lens, go to a shutter speed of say 1/60 or 1/80 to start. See how much ambient is recorded with those settings. If it is adequate then great. Now close down your aperture to a max of say f/5.6 and see what the ambient is like. It will be less obviously, but the lens will determine how much less. The intention will always be to capture the ambient and supplement it with flash. The more ambient, the less flash you will have to use and the less flashy your pictures will look.

Rew wrote: »

Or drop the shutter speed, flash will freeze the foreground slow shutter will expose the background and generate interesting blurring

+1 on this as a nice effect.

JayEnnis wrote: »

You can stop down your aperture or use lower flash powers which equal faster flash durations. It will also bring your ambient up.

I used to shoot in clubs quite a lot, Generally my starting point was 1/30, f/4 @1600. Flash in left hand triggered with P-Wizards or any radio trigger will do. It'll be different depending on venue though.

I would be thinking off camera or bounce flash also but I can't imagine the OP having pocket wizards, let alone TTL enabled triggers

allfred wrote: »

would be nice to use rear curtains flash mode, to give some sense of the movement, and having a certain degree of frozen action.

+1 on this too. This can be used to great effect.

All of this boils down to personal taste and requirements of the club themselves. But for me it is all about colour and movement and trying to blend flash with ambient. If it is a nightclub you deffo want slow shutter and use flash to freeze the action (using rear curtain sync). These settings give photos that capture the atmosphere. I would try and bounce the flash if possible (depends on the bounce surface mind you). Bouncing it directly overhead is not advisable as you can end up with some nasty shadows. Think of your bounce location as a softbox. Where would you locate a softbox? Once you decide then point your flash to bounce off the ceiling at that spot.

As a final bit of advice, you may find that one set of exposure settings will suit the whole club. So if you go to manual exposure mode (which I would advise anyway), set up settings MAX acceptable ISO, shutter of 1/60 or 1/80 and the lowest aperture and take a few pics in different locations you may find that these settings work everywhere as the light may be reasonably consistent. If this is the case then simply forget about your ambient exposure and then all you need to concentrate on is your flash exposure compensation. I would advice using TTL and not manual flash if your flash unit will do that. What flash do you have?

Dave

JayEnnis

You generally can't bounce in nightclubs unless you're going to use the ceiling (Which is generally too high/Dark) or if you're on the dancefloor and you use someones face.. Bouncing just isn't practical. This is what I'm talking about when I say I hold the flash in my left hand. If you're shooting with a canon/nikon flash on a canon/nikon body you can trigger it optically, I just don't like to use the OCF so I use P Wizards. I generally hold the flash far out to the left and high up.

ImagenEstilo

I suppose it is each to their own but the whole holding a flash out to the left or right wouldn't work for me as I prefer two hands on the camera for obvious reasons. You are right though, it all depends on the building itself as to what surfaces are available to bounce off but I would certainly prefer to bounce as opposed to undiffused direct flash. That photo above is just too flashy for me but again that is personal taste and means nothing. I would prefer to capture more of the background light, it it means upping the ISO to 6400 then so be it. And if I couldn't bounce I would simply use some fill flash or dialed down TTL flash as a filler.

For me it is about getting as much ambient as possible and then supplementing it with flash.

homerun_homer

TTWNF wrote: »

use a 50MM prime open wide & bump up the ISO...

I would have thought this would be a bad choice because if the place is packed there may not be enough room to take a picture of a group of people and get the desired shot. You'll be taking close ups all the time with no variety in how you're capturing the audience.

I do love a 50mm though.

ImagenEstilo

You'd need to mix it up with something wider but for me an 85mm equivalent wide aperture lens would be perfect to get max ambient light, nice perspective on portraits and speed. Then a wide angle for getting more of the place itself and doing the rear curtain flash frozen action style shots.

Corkbah

PaulyBolger wrote: »

Hey guys,

I've been asked to take photos in a nightclub next week but i have no experience at all with this. I'm using a Canon EOS 600D with an external flash.


What would be the best settings for my camera?


Thanks!

so how did you get on ?

PaulyBolger

Corkbah wrote: »

so how did you get on ?

its not until saturday, starting to freak out now cause i don't have a flash anymore..

JayEnnis

50/85 in a club? You guys are either crazy/have never shot in a club before.

24/28/35 is pretty much what you want. I don't get this fascination with 50mm's, they're terrible lenses on crop bodies. OP if you can pick up a 35 f/2 and a manual YN-560, you have to take into account that you will be surrounded by drunk people so try not to bring really expensive gear with you. A weather sealed body helps though.