night club photos (NWS) (2)

psychodweep wrote in post #14099970
Why is it obvious to use second curtain ?? Just use first curtain, you will be able to time your moment better.
With long shutters and lots of ambient light, you better use low iso and small aperture if you don't want any ghosts. It's a different look on the pictures.
It's really not necessary to use iso3200 or higher if you have flash, unless you make ambient light overview shots.

sound like tips for "Crime Scene and Evidence Photography" ...

GCWB: First. Use first curtain flash. Second curtain is going to be too much work. I am assuming the ghosting is occuring because of your use of high ISO. With high iSO and a long shutter in a nightclub, you must tilt/rotate the camera before the shutter closes. If you don't you will get heavy ghosting. And do it in small amounts! A tiny twist of the wrist is all that's needed

If you dont want spinny light trails, drop your ISO down to 200 or so.1/2 - 1 sec exposure. What you will get now is blobs of light in the background. If you decide you want to shake the camera a bit, be careful. The light trails will be alot more sharp and ugly at lower iso.


Brandsanity: That iso is way high. There you go. I think the highest I have gone was iso 2500. But that is overkill for me. Jesus.

pod_canon wrote in post #14092941
Red carpets are a walk in the park. To be honest, you'll be bored out of your mind since it involves a lot of waiting around since invariably they get started late. Basically they are usually well-lit so you can often just shoot using the ambient light. It's really a classic case of "f8 and be there".

Thanks man. Appreciate it!

Hey guys, I know this is kind of off topic....but I have this school project and I just need to get a lot of hits on this video. So if you could place share
http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=V8aEmMQgtJI

Brandsanity wrote in post #14099003
Usually 6400 or 12800. Thought the noise would be removable in post but just makes the images look soft! Think dropping down to 3200 would be better - it's just so easy to use the higher ISOs when they're there though. Especially when the clubs are so dark at times I struggle to get faster than 1/10 at ISO 12800

I'm not sure of the specs on the 60D, but 12800 is probably a "fake" ISO setting. What I mean is that basically your camera is doing some interpolation work and guessing at what 12800 would look like, since the sensor may not be able to do it natively. Non-native ISOs are represented as L, H1, H2, etc...

On my MK II the sensor tops out at 6400. Which is actually what I "live" at in most clubs. Regular readers will note my obsession with ambient light, haha. 12800 and 25600 are H1 and H2 respectively. I've used 12800 before and with careful color correction made it useable, but I haven't gone to 25600 yet on a regular basis.

Newer Canon bodies have 12800 and 25600 as native ISOs.

Anyways, the best way to get around this is to shoot at the top native ISO and deal with your exposures later in Lightroom. Oh, and always shoot RAW in these cases.

fminus wrote in post #14102454
GCWB: First. Use first curtain flash. Second curtain is going to be too much work. I am assuming the ghosting is occuring because of your use of high ISO. With high iSO and a long shutter in a nightclub, you must tilt/rotate the camera before the shutter closes. If you don't you will get heavy ghosting. And do it in small amounts! A tiny twist of the wrist is all that's needed

If you dont want spinny light trails, drop your ISO down to 200 or so.1/2 - 1 sec exposure. What you will get now is blobs of light in the background. If you decide you want to shake the camera a bit, be careful. The light trails will be alot more sharp and ugly at lower iso.


Brandsanity: That iso is way high. There you go. I think the highest I have gone was iso 2500. But that is overkill for me. Jesus.

Hi fminus, thanks for the response. I assumed second curtain was the best choice as it would bring out the clubbers faces from the ambient? Instead of with a first curtain flash which would flash, capturing the clubbers faces, but subsequently having light trails overlaying their faces for the rest of the shutter.

I think I will start using first curtain sync, after two months of working I've learnt so much, but feel like I have so much more to explore.

One style of photography that I absolutely love, is this guys:
http://www.facebook.co​m/johnnysphotography
Been striving to get the effects that he's gotten.
However I've struggled with getting the flash to bring out everyones faces. I've learnt it works best with groups of 2/3. However, does anyone have any tips for me to use my off camera stofen diffused flash so that the light will hit everyones faces, without having to overexpose?

GCWB wrote in post #14107483
Hi fminus, thanks for the response. I assumed second curtain was the best choice as it would bring out the clubbers faces from the ambient? Instead of with a first curtain flash which would flash, capturing the clubbers faces, but subsequently having light trails overlaying their faces for the rest of the shutter.

I think I will start using first curtain sync, after two months of working I've learnt so much, but feel like I have so much more to explore.

One style of photography that I absolutely love, is this guys:
http://www.facebook.co​m/johnnysphotography
Been striving to get the effects that he's gotten.
However I've struggled with getting the flash to bring out everyones faces. I've learnt it works best with groups of 2/3. However, does anyone have any tips for me to use my off camera stofen diffused flash so that the light will hit everyones faces, without having to overexpose?

The club photos with light trails I would say are high-ish ISO (maybe 800-1600), first curtain flash and around 1/2 second or more shutter speed. When you press the shutter, twist the camera. I find sometimes pausing before you twist the camera helps. Also an ultra wide angle lens is used giving that distortion towards the edges. Off camera flash isn't necessarily needed! I find using the Stofen with flash at 45 degrees usually gives the best results.

Brandsanity wrote in post #14107547
The club photos with light trails I would say are high-ish ISO (maybe 800-1600), first curtain flash and around 1/2 second or more shutter speed. When you press the shutter, twist the camera. I find sometimes pausing before you twist the camera helps. Also an ultra wide angle lens is used giving that distortion towards the edges!

Yeah I thought as much, however that high of an iso? I'd worry if I broke 1200 as an iso, that the ambient light would be sure to create ghosting. (prove me wrong here, I'm still learning n all)

I've been using a 10-22mm on my 7D this weekend actually (I know about the scale factor), had a bit of a practice, but not with light trails. For some reason I felt like resorting back to using my flash on the mount as opposed to corded. Just wanted to remind myself of the lighting it produces, and I've found it's produced consistently decent photographs, but they're just boring and flat. I'll give the swirls a try again next week, cheers for that.

Any recommendations for holding the flash off camera? I know you aren't supposed to aim the sto-fen directly at the clubbers, but I find that it produces a natural vignette. Furthermore the ceiling is too high. Should I be reflecting off my hand or something?

Cheers

GCWB wrote in post #14107612
Yeah I thought as much, however that high of an iso? I'd worry if I broke 1200 as an iso, that the ambient light would be sure to create ghosting. (prove me wrong here, I'm still learning n all)

I've been using a 10-22mm on my 7D this weekend actually (I know about the scale factor), had a bit of a practice, but not with light trails. For some reason I felt like resorting back to using my flash on the mount as opposed to corded. Just wanted to remind myself of the lighting it produces, and I've found it's produced consistently decent photographs, but they're just boring and flat. I'll give the swirls a try again next week, cheers for that.

Any recommendations for holding the flash off camera? I know you aren't supposed to aim the sto-fen directly at the clubbers, but I find that it produces a natural vignette. Furthermore the ceiling is too high. Should I be reflecting off my hand or something?

Cheers

Maybe not as high as 1600, but I find 800 - 1250 to be pretty safe!

You will get some ghosting and no doubt some will be totally ruined by the light. I usually take 2 shots of groups; a safe one (1/4 or 1/6 ish) and then a riskier one at about 1/2 to 1 second shutter.

Guess these have similar-ish light

Brandsanity wrote in post #14107670
Maybe not as high as 1600, but I find 800 - 1250 to be pretty safe!

You will get some ghosting and no doubt some will be totally ruined by the light. I usually take 2 shots of groups; a safe one (1/4 or 1/6 ish) and then a riskier one at about 1/2 to 1 second shutter.

I know it's risky, but it really brings out the atmosphere of the clubs. Wow cheers for those examples, they're pretty much what I'm going for and it's nice to know we're on the same page. Through my experimentation, I've found that if any of the ambient lights shine on the faces during the exposure, problems will start to arise. If their backs are facing the lights, and you've got a good chance of nailing it.

I've also recently learnt to not show the pictures to clubbers (was doing this every picture I took), and take take 2/3 pictures max of 1 group. Otherwise they get restless. (which is fair enough, preferably you get the picture on the first go).

Recently got my own facebook page up and running:
http://www.facebook.co​m/gdesignerwork
If you want to see my work, still updating it really.

FB quality...

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Haven't posted in a while. Shot the Dead Meat tour this last week and I must say it was one of funnest shows I have shot in awhile.

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Wow, nice work!

How do you get jobs at such big shows? Apply or do you get asked?