So tonight Nelski (Chris Lake’s studio partner) is playing at my local residency as he’s good mates with the head resident.
I’m planning on taking my SLR camera along (Canon 1000D) with a EFS 18-55mm lens. When ever i try and take images in dark environments such as nightclubs as the club is quite dark i just can’t seem to get them to look good..
Do any of you guys take images with an SLR with no external flash? I don’t use an external or the internal flash. What sort of settings shout i be looking at to be using? Its confusing me quite a bit.
I also won’t be using a tripod. My main aim is to get probably still and moving images of him doing his live set but i would like to capture still images of him singing live..
Biggest aperture u hav got and. Don’t be scared to bump the ISO up to Maby 3000. And try to keep the shutter speed responsive/fast. Also Maby try bracketing if u hav a steady hand.
Set your camera to aperture priority mode. This way, the camera will take care of all the other settings. Make sure the number in aperture mode is as low as possible. Then bump up your ISO setting to around 2000-2500. That’s already pretty high, so try not to go above it. That should give you good images.
The other option is to put it into manual mode. Set it to around a half second, and set the aperture so the light meter is a little on the negative side. You want to have it a little under developed. Then you’re going to put on your flash. This should set it up so you’ll catch a little bit of light trails, but freeze all the action in front of you.
a couple of guys i used to speak to before i moved used to run a longer shutter speed, so after the flash the shutter still open and all it can see is the mixer lights in the dark, then they’d move the camera about to get light trails on the pic…
I use a 50mm-1.4 for those shots, that’s the only way to get somehow decent shots with using a flash.
Otherwise you need to use a flash as indirect light- easiest way to do this:
Use an external flash
Use some kind of reflector; I used to have a white sheet of paper stuck to my flash with a rubber-band
Direct the flash upward so it doesn’t come off too bright
That way you achieve a natural look without overexposing your photo-“subjects”
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?
