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help with taking club pictures

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thai nguyen

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I was wondering if there was any work a rounds when the camera fails to shot in manual, A, or S mode when the I’m shooing in low light. I shoot club pictures. At times, I sit there as the club patrons stand there waiting for their pics and I apologize for the delay as I switch the camera on Automatic mode. In automatic mode, the picture is not exposed correctly at all. I am using the stock lens with the D70 and a SB 800 flash. Will getting a smaller aperture lense help? I need a new lenses anyways, taking club pics at a 3.5 aperture is no good. Please advise.
 
get a 50mm/f1.8D nikkor lens...
thai nguyen said:
I was wondering if there was any work a rounds when the camera
fails to shot in manual, A, or S mode when the I’m shooing in low
light. I shoot club pictures. At times, I sit there as the club
patrons stand there waiting for their pics and I apologize for the
delay as I switch the camera on Automatic mode. In automatic mode,
the picture is not exposed correctly at all. I am using the stock
lens with the D70 and a SB 800 flash. Will getting a smaller
aperture lense help? I need a new lenses anyways, taking club pics
at a 3.5 aperture is no good. Please advise.
Click to expand...
 
Jeremy,
Will this help with the auto focus problem?
jeremyInMT said:
thai nguyen said:
I was wondering if there was any work a rounds when the camera
fails to shot in manual, A, or S mode when the I’m shooing in low
light. I shoot club pictures. At times, I sit there as the club
patrons stand there waiting for their pics and I apologize for the
delay as I switch the camera on Automatic mode. In automatic mode,
the picture is not exposed correctly at all. I am using the stock
lens with the D70 and a SB 800 flash. Will getting a smaller
aperture lense help? I need a new lenses anyways, taking club pics
at a 3.5 aperture is no good. Please advise.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
thai nguyen said:
I was wondering if there was any work a rounds when the camera
fails to shot in manual, A, or S mode when the I’m shooing in low
light. I shoot club pictures. At times, I sit there as the club
patrons stand there waiting for their pics and I apologize for the
delay as I switch the camera on Automatic mode. In automatic mode,
the picture is not exposed correctly at all. I am using the stock
lens with the D70 and a SB 800 flash. Will getting a smaller
aperture lense help? I need a new lenses anyways, taking club pics
at a 3.5 aperture is no good. Please advise.
Click to expand...
I am not sure I understand what the problem is. The only reason I can think of why it would not take a picture is that it is not getting a focus lock because of the dark. But the SB-800 has a really nice focus assist light, which should enough to get a lock even if you are in the dark. Is that light on? It should project a red cross-hatch pattern.

I could see why you want to turn off the built-in focus assist, because it is pretty bright and annoying for your subjects, but I would definitely use the SB-800 light, which is more subtle.

I also don't understand why it would get a focus lock in Auto, but not the other modes. Though I have never used Auto mode, so I guess I don't know how it works.

A faster lens should get a focus lock more easily, because it can let more light in for the system to work with. But since you are shooting with flash, I would not necessarily think you really need the faster lens.

You also could use continuous focus mode, where it will always take a picture when you press the shutter, but then lots of your shots will be out of focus, so it is probably not a good idea for this situation.

-- Matt
Gallery - http://www.imageevent.com/pmattf
 
thai nguyen said:
what kind of lense are you using? what is your setting on the sb-800
Click to expand...
The lens should not matter. With an SB-800 at its default out of the box settings you should be able get decent pictures in total darkness using any modern Nikon lens.

I would highly recommend that buy Thom Hogan's D70 e-book, he covers flash photography, and lots more, in great detail. See http://www.bythom.com .

If you follow his instructions you will get even better results.

-- Matt
Gallery - http://www.imageevent.com/pmattf
 
Indeed the lens does not really matter (as long as it is a CPU lens that provides metering).

I do some club shooting and before I had my SB600 (yesterday, btw, so I'll see results this weekend) I used a Metz 32 (with internal metering) on Auto Aperture/ISO settings that were the same as on the D70 in Manual. In my case I always shot at f5.6/ISO200 Shutter range between 1/60 and 1/125 with very nice results using the DX18-70.

Note that shooting at wide open aperture with fast lenses & flash in a club does not yield great results...

Regards,
Filip
 
The pic's taken in the gallery I posted were taken with a 28-200mm 3.5-5.6 G, nothing really fancy but I get good results with it.

What's worth noting is that the I set the flash sync speed to 1/30 sec. That way the pic are a bit blurry but there's more ambiant light in the shots. Also, from the top of my head, I think my iso was set to 800, again to get more ambiant light in the shots. The flash (onboard didn't have the sb-800 yet) was still strong enough to freeze the action.

I'm sure the sb-800 can do even better (haven't tried it out in a club yet).

Can you post the setting you use, because I can't figure out why your exposuremetering is off.

--
gallery's @ http://www.illdesign.nl
 
Snuff said:
Usually I shoot in night clubs with such parameters:
Manual mode, Shutter speed: 1/8s, Aperture: 6,3, Spot metering, WB
  • Flash, Flash compensation -1Ev, ISO 400.
Btw, I use onboard flash.

Some examples:
http://electronika.spb.ru/photo/2004_05_14_15_2,5_year_of_par_spb/3/index.shtml

http://electronika.spb.ru/photo/2004_06_19_tunnel_retro/1/index.shtml

http://electronika.spb.ru/photo
Click to expand...
some nice pictures! but how can you get these to be sooo sharp if you with a 1/8 sec shutter speed!?

--
Happy Snapping!
Anton Spaans, http://flyingdutchie.smugmug.com
 
There is a foreground sharp, not a background. It is sharp because of a flash impulse which freezes moving objects. Also postprocessing in Photoshop make pictures more sharper.
 
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