[OT] Clubnight Photography

[Rdperry]

Slow shutter speed and use a flash

[photojojo]

You can get rectangular pieces of white foam at the hobby shop for a few dollars that work great as bounce cards on a flash.

[jimbob5000]

A lot of good tips around here.

With the kit lens, try to get as close as you can and use wider angles. Less distance means less possibility to visibly blur the picture. Also try to find something to lean on. A wall or maybe some pillar. Turn image stabilization on, set iso to 1600, see if that gets you anywhere. If not, crank the iso up one more notch. In both cases, be prepared to junk 50 percent of the pictures,
A trick I use is to use continuous shooting mode, because pressing and releasing the shutter button always adds some extra movement to the camera and hence risk of more blur with longer exposure times, which it won't in pictures 2,3 and 4 when you hold the button.

To me, a faster lens seems to promise the biggest improvement. The Canon fantastic plastic 1.8 50mm is great, I have one, but at 1.8 you will have a very shallow depth of field, so it's gonna be extra hard sometimes to get a sharp shot. Plus: no zoom or wider angles, which is good in some situations, but not so good in others.
I had a 350d before and a 550d now, and in both cases, for low light situations, a better lens and an external flash with enough options to be able to bounce it and to turn it's power down really low were the most significant improvement. Lenswise, it's personal preference, but for me, a Tamron 18-55 with image stabilizer and 2.8 aperture across the board did the trick. Compared to a 1.8 50mm Canon or the kit lens, it is relatively heavy and expensive, but still lighter and cheaper than the equivalent canon lens.

It's gonna be too late for that occasion when I submit this anyway, but there's always the next time, right?