Igrado
20th of July 2009 (Mon), 17:34
TLDR: When shooting a semi-active subject in dim lighting, which do you feel is a better approach, a wider aperture or an attached strobe?
Hello. I have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks reading stickies and chasing links. I am an amateur, and I find the information here both vast and helpful. If this is the wrong Forum or sub-Forum for this thread, please move it.
I currently have a professional connection which I am able to use for experience now as well as a foot into the entertainment industry. It is with a friend who owns a new entertainment business, is a DJ, and heads up a local cover band. The band has been performing for about 6 months and I have had been able attend both practices as well as almost all of their shows. At many of these venues I have also been their photographer and while I am learning a lot, I am having a hard time overcoming the dark scene of a bar at night. They have been at the location shown in the following photographs for about 6 weeks now and only have a couple weeks left here, unless they get extended again.
I would of course, appreciate any advice in general, but specifically, I am looking at lighting issues. I am running on a tight budget and trying to make sure my equipment investments are both helpful short term as well as wise long term. Much of last week I studied lighting and strobes, and settled on the 430EX II as the best choice. However, before investing so much money (yes to me it is a lot) I bought a Lumiquest softscreen. I tried this out last week as well as trying out simple 3x5 cards as bounce cards on the pop-up flash. I found the softscreen worked best, but after about an hour, one of the patrons complained that the flash was constantly blinding him, so I rigged a 3x5 card to each side of the softscreen, creating a sort of softbox.
This week my reading has led me to consider getting a wider lens instead. Currently I am using a Sigma 28-90mm f/3.5-f/5.6 on a Rebel XT (350D). I have read in other threads on this subject of photogs using no flash and a wider lense for similar situations, and someone said a lens like that could be picked up for as low as $75. That price is far better than the $250 that a 430EXii would cost, though perhaps not as helpful in other situations. When shooting a semi-active subject in dim lighting, which do you feel is a better approach, a wider aperture or an attached strobe?
Here is the link to the photostream, before Photoshop (except the B&W one obviously, which was cropped and desaturated)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwalton85/sets/72157621751824794/
As an afterthought, but definitely related. I have been trying to avoid 1600 ISO as I feel it was giving me very grainy shots. You can see this pretty easily in IMG_6059 for example, especially if you run it into photoshop and let it autobalance the levels!
Hello. I have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks reading stickies and chasing links. I am an amateur, and I find the information here both vast and helpful. If this is the wrong Forum or sub-Forum for this thread, please move it.
I currently have a professional connection which I am able to use for experience now as well as a foot into the entertainment industry. It is with a friend who owns a new entertainment business, is a DJ, and heads up a local cover band. The band has been performing for about 6 months and I have had been able attend both practices as well as almost all of their shows. At many of these venues I have also been their photographer and while I am learning a lot, I am having a hard time overcoming the dark scene of a bar at night. They have been at the location shown in the following photographs for about 6 weeks now and only have a couple weeks left here, unless they get extended again.
I would of course, appreciate any advice in general, but specifically, I am looking at lighting issues. I am running on a tight budget and trying to make sure my equipment investments are both helpful short term as well as wise long term. Much of last week I studied lighting and strobes, and settled on the 430EX II as the best choice. However, before investing so much money (yes to me it is a lot) I bought a Lumiquest softscreen. I tried this out last week as well as trying out simple 3x5 cards as bounce cards on the pop-up flash. I found the softscreen worked best, but after about an hour, one of the patrons complained that the flash was constantly blinding him, so I rigged a 3x5 card to each side of the softscreen, creating a sort of softbox.
This week my reading has led me to consider getting a wider lens instead. Currently I am using a Sigma 28-90mm f/3.5-f/5.6 on a Rebel XT (350D). I have read in other threads on this subject of photogs using no flash and a wider lense for similar situations, and someone said a lens like that could be picked up for as low as $75. That price is far better than the $250 that a 430EXii would cost, though perhaps not as helpful in other situations. When shooting a semi-active subject in dim lighting, which do you feel is a better approach, a wider aperture or an attached strobe?
Here is the link to the photostream, before Photoshop (except the B&W one obviously, which was cropped and desaturated)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwalton85/sets/72157621751824794/
As an afterthought, but definitely related. I have been trying to avoid 1600 ISO as I feel it was giving me very grainy shots. You can see this pretty easily in IMG_6059 for example, especially if you run it into photoshop and let it autobalance the levels!