Sigma 20mm f/1.8 Lens for Nightclubs

f4 1/10s seems to be good, althought a little dificult to steady... What iso you suggest?

PatMunits sugested 1st curtain instead of 2nd....

Any opinion?

cheers,

Eduardo

labao said:

Except for the first picture others are not sharp.... I got others
sharp too, but with fast speeds and massive flash use. But as I
said the backlit was poor.

Click to expand...

As long as the light in the club is not uniformly bad you got a solution - go as low with shutter speed as necessary to get the background light.

labao said:

When you say "I do not use ISO1600 or even ISO800 since - for me
slower shutter speed and lower ISO produce better results." Didn't
you mean fast shutter and lower ISO?

Click to expand...

nope, slower shutter as in 1/4 second @ f/2.8 @ ISO400

labao said:

Otherwise I think it's
impossible to get sharp pictures in F2.8 and low light.

Click to expand...

most of my non-tele photos are with ISO400-640 and 0.6" to 1/8" @ f/2.8. Whenever possible I try to get my subjects between me and the dancefloor or lighted bar stand.

135mm photos are taken at same ISO with shutter 1/60" @ f/2.2

labao said:

As a matter
of fact I have the impression that your pictures are great but you
had more light than I did. And your backlit is not as my first
picture. Believe the place was very dark with some ambient light on
bars and against the walls. Please don't get me wrong, I am just
saying that my conditions were difficult may be to use lower than
ISO 800....

Click to expand...

I find ISO800 too grainy, the noise kills details in wide angle shots.

labao said:

Regarding the apperture time, don't you think it's too slow for
avoid bluring? Remember, if possible I would like to avoid the USD
800+ for IS....

Click to expand...

How is 1/1000" of a second (or whatever the length of flash is) going to blur your subject? As long as your subject is underexposed by ambient light by about 3 stops you'll be fine. This is why I try to make sure that subjects don't have too much ambient light on their faces. Essentially what you want to do is too always shoot in backlit situations in the club. Your flash goal is to properly expose the foreground backlit object.

labao said:

I use a 430EX with Sto-omnibounce with 2nd curtain. Is
Sto-omnibounce good?

Click to expand...

I prefer to come to the club with minimal gear. Nowadays I don't even bring a camera bag with me. I don't want to carry spare batteries, in case of emergency there's always a convinience store nearby with fresh AA batteries.

I take anywhere from 150 to 300 frames in two/three hour period while I'm in the club. All photos with flash. I think that OmniBounce will waste too much energy since light is not directed (thus bring spare batteries). Secondly, you might periodically get screwed with white balance - all those funky-coloured club walls will reflect non-white light back onto your subjects.

labao said:

Don't you think 1st will result in dark
pics.... In the other hand I think will avoid flashlight blurs....

"Vibrio" posted suggesting 2nd curtain and probably a discussion
may arrise a better idea about it....

Click to expand...

When the shutter speed is extemely low (1/4" or more) then your subject are likely to move, change facial expression, blink, etc... with your second curtain flash. It's not always that you can ask club patrons to wait with their pose until the second flash pops. Two flashes will confuse your subjects. You can avoid pre-flash by putting both the flash into full manual mode, but then your better be able to calculate your necessary flash output very, very quickly. I can't.

Certainly, 2nd curtain flash can produce awesome effects but I only use it where motion is expected and guaranteed, i.e. a raver with the glow sticks on the dance floor or DJs hand on the turntable.

May be I am getting more blur than I wish because of 2nd curtain....

I will try 1st curtain with low speeds such as 1/4 at Iso 400.

I just didn't understand the 1/1000 sugestion... Of course won't blur but..... I used 1/500 to shoot people dancing and liked a lot the results, despite the dark background.

I checked the Lumiquest online, but there are several models.... But all of them seems to take more space than spare batteries Unless there is a big difference in quality I have the impression that 430EX + Omnibouce seems to ocupy much less space than 430EX + Lumiquest...

Cheers,

Eduardo.

labao said:

May be I am getting more blur than I wish because of 2nd curtain....
I will try 1st curtain with low speeds such as 1/4 at Iso 400.

Click to expand...

blur has nothing to do with 1st or 2nd curtain. I avoid 2nd curtain flash because when it's used with slow shutter speed it will confuse subjects. They will move before after the preflash thinking that you already took the picture.

labao said:

I just didn't understand the 1/1000 sugestion... Of course won't blur
but..... I used 1/500 to shoot people dancing and liked a lot the results,
despite the dark background.

Click to expand...

The technique that I described is called "shutter drag". I consider it to be essential for successful night club photography. There are numerous topics on dpreview forums that mention/explain/showcase shatter drag techniques: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/search.asp?query=shutter+drag&page=1&forum=1025

labao said:

I checked the Lumiquest online, but there are several models.... But all
of them seems to take more space than spare batteries Unless there is
a big difference in quality I have the impression that 430EX + Omnibouce
seems to ocupy much less space than 430EX + Lumiquest...

Click to expand...

Lumiquest is big, much bulkier than OmniBounce. However, diffuser such as Lumiquest UltraSoft will diffuse light better than OmniBounce, and will give you faster flash recylcing time, and more cycles per set of batteries.

Quite often clubs have dark enteriors with purpose to kill any light splattering from projector lights, and to obtain the atmosphere that is expected by patrons.

It's hard to OmniBounce light from black ceiling 10 or so feet away.

I was using 400 IIRC. will check and get back to you tonight

First of all thanks a lot for the time you spent helping me. I really really appreciate it.

I tryed to understand the drag shutter technique here and in other places, but 99.999% of the topics sugest to use it, but not explain well how to ...

First I need to set the camera to AV... Let's say I use F/4.0... Probably with iso 400 the shutter will be set to + - 0'8s

So I turn my Speedlite on with auto settings, E-TTL on and zoom auto mode on.... As we talked before I will also use 1st curtain to avoid the movements freezing twice....

So where Drag Shutter technique appear?

I know it seems that I am going to the easiest way, instead of research, but I searched in lots of places and none were clear to me....

Thanks a lot,

Eduardo.

Hello.

Here's my take.

First of all, I'm not convinced that you should be using AV mode.

I suggest you use Manual mode. The simplest way I can express my understanding of the technique is that what you are trying to do is set the camera to expose the background and let the flash provide enough light for the subject.

As the flash provides a lot of light in a short space of time, it will freeze the motion of the subject (but it won't stop background blur if you are doing a long handheld exposure).

There seem to be mixed views about the flash setting, but I would certainly go for second curtain flash because if there is blurring of the subject in my opinion you will get a much cooler effect by freezing the end of the exposure. This is because so any blurred motion leads into the frozen shot, rather than following the frozen motion bit of the image.

Cheers.

Canon 300D Gallery http://www.apbc84.dsl.pipex.com/

Fuji F11 Gallery http://www.apbc84.dsl.pipex.com/F11.html

here's a non-scientific explanation of the "shatter drug" technique the way I understand it:

a photographer uses the combination of extremely fast flash duration speed (a fraction of a thousands of one second) to properly expose the foregound object with the necessity of having a long shutter speed to bring out details of the background which is lit by the ambient lighting.

How do you avoid motion blur?

• Get fast enough shutter speed.

How do you show ambient atmosphere in a dark club?

• Use long exposure time.

How do you combine above two requiments into one shot?

You drag the shutter. For example, to show the dance floor you need f/2.8 - ISO400 and 1/2second exposure. If you photograph a person in front of the dance floor and the camera meter says that you need 2 seconds @ f/2.8 ISO400 to properly expose the person but you shoot 0.5 second then you will severely underexpose your subject. Which is actually great! This is what you want. There will be no subject motion blur because there is not enough light to show the blur! Now, all you have to do is properly light up your subject with a flash and voila, you gut yourself a sharp person against a beautiful background.

labao said:

Which software do you use? I am processing Raw on softwares
provided with the camera so far....

Click to expand...

Hello.

Sorry, I didn't spot your message before or I would have replied earlier.

I use Raw Shooter Essentials (RSE) which I downloaded for free. This includes 3 sliders that let you adjust noise reduction, although sometimes I process without any and just run the picture through Noiseware (another free download).

Cheers.

Canon 300D Gallery http://www.apbc84.dsl.pipex.com/

Fuji F11 Gallery http://www.apbc84.dsl.pipex.com/F11.html

Thanks a lot!!!

I did some tests at home and I am feeling have discovered the wheel!!!

I will go to a club probably this week and make it work in "Battle field"

When you said 1/1000 You were talking about flash speed, not shutter speed...

Thanks again and once I get club pics using this technique I will post here!

it depends on the room, the reflected light and I bet most darker rooms with action have to be shot with either a 1.8 or less and/or flash. Or if they have a bright stage, that suffices for better shutterspeeds.

I would want to be inconspicuous also, and not wanting to annoy the singers or the people, so sometimes flash can't be used.

I use PaintshopPro noise reduction where you choose points of background or color that you want smoothed out. It works quite well. But many use added plug ins for their PS or separate programs, which might be better than what I use. I don't know how the others work. But I like the ability to select the area [by color or background] for noise removal.

If they are really noisy I usually resize to about 2200x1460 which gives room for some sharpening and less noise removal needed. It will sometimes print nicer than a full size photo that has been over processed. [everyone has different theory though] in an 8x10. [or x12]

you might try noise removal as a search title here for names of plug ins.
--



http://netgarden.smugmug.com/
DSC V1 Sony for Infrared, Canon 20D,
a few too many lenses...

I agree with Scott.

I've used the Sigma 20mm in a club and found the focus speed painful! Sure, the 1.8 comes in handy every 100 shots to get really great ambient light, but I don't think it weighs up enough compared to the focus speed.
Compared to a good Canon USM focus system - it's like chalk and cheese

Using your flash to help focus assist always gets me out of trouble. I always use center point focus, set the camera to M and use ISO800-1600, normally set it to f/4.5 (using canon 17-40mm f/4) and shutter anywhere from 1/10 -> 1/40. With the 17-40, I find I need to put my FEC +1/3.

I never shoot raw in clubs either. Mainly because, if I shoot 500 RAW images in a night, and have to process (and store!) them all is a waste.
I shoot JPEG, and to get rid of noise, use a program like Neat Image.

Most of my images are used for web (500px) with 6 of the best used for print (1000px).

If you did want to get good ambient light without using a flash, did you know you can still use the flash to help with focusing?

If you have a 20D/30D, it's Custom Function 7. If it's set to "not fire" it will use your external flash for focusing, but will not fire. I find this useful when taking wide group shots of the crowd, but getting the full colours of the lights.

Hope this helps, good luck

It takes a while to get good club shots, especially if you shoot different clubs on different nights. The best way is to take as many shots as you can! Then find what works.

Anthony

Scott G Spellman said:

To fix your focus issues I would make sure that you use centerpoint
focus only and pic high contrast targets such as eyes. I would not
use ISO1600 or f2.8. I have great success at ISO800, f5, 1/20th,
with the flash on FEC +1/3.

-Scott

labao said:

I am using a 430EX. Do you think for this use 580EX makes
diference? I don't want to use more than one flash since one is
enought big to move into the crowd....

You say that focus is slow. But is it precise. I mean my concern is
misfocus in the dark.

I will try iso 1600 all times next time I go shooting..... I may
need also a good raw editor for noise reduction.... After this I
think I don't need Canon for 800 extra...

Regards,

Eduardo

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
aNt's Full Gallery - http://www.ants.id.au

iso 400 1/3s f4.5





iso400 0.8s f1.8

Are they both free from adwares and stuff that normaly come with freewares?

you have buy or obtain it illegally

Thanks to all the posters for all the tips, hints and techniques and especially links to pictures showing results.

I wish I had found this thread about 3 days ago before my first concert attempts.

--
ronh
http://jose.tzo.net

Actually I downloaded Noiseware for free.... There is a comunity version in the website... I just don't know if it contains spywares or not.

Nice shoots!

By the way what's "400 IIRC"?

Did you use 2nd curtain or 1st curtain in 1st and 2nd pictures?

By the way did you use the "drag shutter" technique? Your shoots are very steady for the time exposure you set, I like it!

I thought about 20mm f/1.8, but since I saw bad reviews regarding the focus I think I might get disappointed..... I will try to develop a little more techniques and may be think about a second lens....

My concern now is to have a good primary lens, that I have the impression the Tamron 17-50 is.

About the softwares I will start practice with freewares.... After getting used, if necessary I buy one.

I have a impression that I will get disappointed with Sigma. I will try to make sure my 17-50 is good for me.

I checked the 17-40 in store and got really impressed with it and its USM.

But I have the impression it might be too slow. The best world may be 16-35, but again it's a hobby and this difference doesn't worth for me so far.

Don't you think the Tamron fixed apperture of f/2.8 is better for these situations?

Regarding use the flash to help with focusing I have the 350D and it doesn't have this Custom Function... Seems that the $ differences appear in this details.