night club photos (NWS)

depends on how your using your flash. if your shooting with direct flash you will always have a great deal of fall off. But if you bounce the light you will have a much softer light and wider beam spread. I don't believe the 430ex has a built in bounce card, so you might want to invest in a lumiquest, stoffen, ect, or you can ghetto rig a bounce card with a note card/napkin and a rubber band.

Default this wrote in post #10174803
Let me ask you this..DO any of you guys use a LENS HOOD?...I honestly have never used one (in nightlife, or regular photoshoots) and barley know the main reason purpose of them, other than eliminating lens flares.
I see a lot of "point and shoot" nightlife guys with a big lens hood on there lens...and I always thought to myself...why does he even HAVE that on? lol
personally i love when i get lens flares in my photos...
Im curious if you guys use them, why, and for what extent?

They say that using a lens hood provides better contrast but for me, it's mainly for protection. It can get pretty nasty out there in club land

do you guys just attach the flash to the camera? or do you hold it off camera? because some images dont look like direct flash.

ATXsouljah wrote in post #10177424
do you guys just attach the flash to the camera? or do you hold it off camera? because some images dont look like direct flash.

There's different techniques that everyone uses. Some use it on, some off. I don't direct flash it. Just have a stofen angled at 45 degrees on the hot shoe.

thanks! i think i need to use my diffuser more, even when i have the chance to i always forget to put it on

A DIY foam ABBC rubber banded to my flash.

I tried the lightsphere clear, but it gave me some underexposed shots, even with paper taped to the back to throw more light forward, and it added way more unnecessary weight to my camera.

I haven't used the stofen yet. ABBC works good for me, and I won't lose it, and it won't hurt people and it's not big and obtrusive.

Default this wrote in post #10174803
Let me ask you this..DO any of you guys use a LENS HOOD?...I honestly have never used one (in nightlife, or regular photoshoots) and barley know the main reason purpose of them, other than eliminating lens flares.
I see a lot of "point and shoot" nightlife guys with a big lens hood on there lens...and I always thought to myself...why does he even HAVE that on? lol
personally i love when i get lens flares in my photos...
Im curious if you guys use them, why, and for what extent?

I use lens hoods all the time.
When shooting sports, portraits, or just about anything it helps with flare.
In the club, it protects against flailing arms, and also I use it as a guard to stop people from running into me, petal hoods hurt when you take them to the back of the head.

ATXsouljah wrote in post #10177424
do you guys just attach the flash to the camera? or do you hold it off camera? because some images dont look like direct flash.

Depends how I feel, I use a lot of techniques, depending on where I am shooting and what I am shooting.
Usually clubs I use a sto-fen with the flash on camera, but I have also used a demb bracket with a demb flip it.
And in the many years I've been shooting, I've used everything from foil to notecards to a piece of black foam ( that one is always fun, but doesn't work so well in the club).

A couple Nic Fanciulli shots from last night.

kmarriner wrote in post #10178056
I use lens hoods all the time.
When shooting sports, portraits, or just about anything it helps with flare.
In the club, it protects against flailing arms, and also I use it as a guard to stop people from running into me, petal hoods hurt when you take them to the back of the head.

Lets add that to the uses of a hood.

1. Lens protection - Protect front element of lens
2. Flare protection - Protect from unwanted flare to lens
3. Douchebag protection - Protect from unwanted douchbags

^--- +1 on the douchebag protection.

Shea.Flynn wrote in post #10176829
So this week I found out my hot shoe is broken, with two flashes every shot I take has to be straight on, I cant tilt in any pretty much any direction or it will miss fire.... wonderful lol. Time to start saving for a 5D or 1D!

The "fins" might be loose. Bend them back into alignment, it'll help...

Shea.Flynn wrote in post #10176829
So this week I found out my hot shoe is broken, with two flashes every shot I take has to be straight on, I cant tilt in any pretty much any direction or it will miss fire.... wonderful lol. Time to start saving for a 5D or 1D!

If it's just super loose you can tighten it yourself.

Shea.Flynn wrote in post #10176829
So this week I found out my hot shoe is broken, with two flashes every shot I take has to be straight on, I cant tilt in any pretty much any direction or it will miss fire.... wonderful lol. Time to start saving for a 5D or 1D!

And after posting this I realized I take the same shot over and over lol, gotta change it up this week.

Easy fix Sean. Take a small flat head screwdriver, pop up the little metal shim right above the contacts of the hot shoe, pull out shim, and you will see 4 tiny Phillips head screws, tighten those bad boys up and reinstall shim.

Had to do this all the time for my 5d and my offcam hotshoe cords

edit: heres a link... http://neilvn.com …e-on-the-canon-1d-series/

Its very common. i did it to all my cameras.

using the way mentioned above would it possible to unmount the hot shoe entirely and unpaint it so its silver?


actually thou, with the way the 580exII mounts, it doesnt look like it'll rub off the paint on the hot shoe as much as my 430ex would.