What flash will give me results like these?!?!?

My friend is a nightclub promoter, and wants me to shoot for his clubs. For some extra change also. but of course im gonna need the right equipment.

im workin with a 20D, default lens.


http://higherelevation​.smugmug.com/gallery/2​550005#P-14-9

what flash will give me results like those??

anything from a vivitar to a q flash

its all about technique, hot to diffuse it (if that even was), modify it, and hwo to allow ambient light in. spend some time in the stickies at the top of the forum.

Take yer pick.

Any flash unit will light people up 4 feet in front of the lens. What's most important in a dark environment like that is to have a dedicated flash with an AF assist light. There are many models from both Canon and aftermarket brands that have an AF assist light and would work fine in that environment.

The shadows on those look soft enough, there might have been a softbox on the flash head.

A friend of mine takes pics like this. Anything with a bounce head should be fine. Rubberband a 3x5 index card to the flash head and shoot with the flash pointed straight up. That'll at least get you started.

but first your going to need 3 good looking models!!

I would also recomend to consider, perhaps, a small softbox to the flash, shall do the trick not to make light harsh))Good luck!

The manufacturers' label doesn't make the picture - the photographer does.
Any gun can acheive these results in the right hands.

You can't buy experience/technique.

from what i have been observing, its a really simple set up. the last setup i saw consisted of a canon xt, kit lens, and a sigma 500 flash.

you have to consider that majority of the club people are accustomed to there small point and shoots with internal flash. any external flash and decent camera setup will produce more than satisfactory results for the clubbers. in addition, a small majority and i mean really small well actually print these pictures out. the pictures will be most likely linked online.

in conclusion, dont bring/buy nice camera stuff to a club. you will being dealing with drunk people and low expectations.

If you scan through these forums there are some really good club shots. Better than the ones in the link by a long way and its more a matter of balancing the ambient light portion of your shot with the flash to freeze and higlight the subject in the fore ground. This makes the shot look like they are in a club rather than just a protrait with a dark background like so many club shots end up.

Like it has been said above though this takes experience not a piece of specialist kit so any half decent flash will do.

edit: took a quick trawl myself and this guy hits the mark pretty well and the thread below has some settings you might want to try to get started.

https://photography-on-the.net …php?p=2114926#p​ost2114926

wow those are really nice flash shots!

always thought you suppose to up the ISO in clubs and stuff and shoot wide open?

Yella Fella wrote in post #2836592
wow those are really nice flash shots!

Honestly, I wasn't all that impressed. Most of them aren't focused very well, and the backgrounds are dark. They could have been taken with [green box] mode.

I quite liked the framing/composition, but when I tried some of this, i tend to up the ISO to around 800, or is that not the done thing?

I see a lot of people using F4 rather than shooting wide open, guess to keep a bit of sharpness

Would you use full on full power flash for these situations, or even set FEC flash to 0, bounced? Possibly Diffused?

I have the lumiquest 80/20, and that seems to give different results compared to the stofen

With subjects as close as those in the link above, just about any flash unit has enough power to illuminate them at ISO 100 and moderate apertures.

But if you want to brighten the background, you need to expose that background just like any other ambient light shot. That means relatively slow shutter, wide aperture and high ISO when the environment is dark.

Bouncing might be a possibility depending on the ceiling. Without a good bouncing surface, your best bet is to make the light source larger with a softbox, Lumiquest Pocket Bouncer or similar attachment. Even the Lumiquest 80/20 can work, albeit inefficiently.

E-TTL mode with FEC at +2/3 would be my starting point.

thats a lot of flash power surely at +2/3? never even tried above 0 before!

Might have to try this soft box, which is the best one, lumiquest variants?

For my previous night time shots, i used to use roughly iso 800, shutter speed of around 1/30 and 1/40 at aperture of F2.8/F4

Surely a higher F number results in less light, but also does that mean flash has to work harder?

Yella Fella wrote in post #2837364
Surely a higher F number results in less light, but also does that mean flash has to work harder?

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Let's do the math.
Zoomed to 35mm coverage (22mm on a 1.6x camera), the 580EX has a GN of 36 meters, or about 120 feet.

So if the subjects are 5 1/2 feet away you'll need full power to shoot at f/22 and ISO 100 (120/5.5=22).
1/4 power to shoot at f/11.
1/16 power to shoot at f/5.6.
1/32 power to shoot at f/4
1/128 power to shoot at f/4 and ISO 400.

Sure, you'll loose a stop or two with a softbox. But I hope you can see that even a flash with modest power can handle those distances with low ISO and moderate apertures. It won't even need to grunt!

I have the Lumiquest Softbox which works nice. Others have recommended the Westcott Micro Apollo.