Spark of Hope New Year's Gala

Chaoslillith

Hello all,

I was invited to photograph a charity New Year's Eve party. They were interested in both BW and color. I am very proud of a lot of the shots so I want to share them. Any and all feedback is welcomed.

I did some shots on longer exposures to get the feel of the energy of the event.

1


2


3



4


5. They had an awesome propane firepit that all the ladies in the short skirts kept migrating too.


6


These last two are my favorites
7


8

Wil Davis

Looks like they're not currently available…



- Wil

Chaoslillith

I wondered if that would happen. I can fix it in a second. Changed settings on flickr.

Should be able to see them now.

DonRicklin

Chaoslillith wrote:

I wondered if that would happen. I can fix it in a second. Changed settings on flickr.

Should be able to see them now.

Nope!

Don

Chaoslillith

That is wierd because I can see them.

I did it as an img link. I will see what I can do.

Apparently flickr is blocking it for some reason. I hate using photobucket but looks like I have no choice.

Sorry for the delay.

Chaoslillith

Fixed

Wil Davis

Ah, I can see them!

Looks like everyone was having a great time!

It's difficult to get a balance, especially when using flash. One of the problems using flash is that everything gets frozen in time, which is not really what you want especially at a party or dance where you want to capture a sense of movement.

Here's what I've found (might require a bit of experimentation):

ISO set to 400;
Exposure set to manual (¼ sec @ f2.8);
Focus set to auto;
Flash set to manual and adjust as necessary;
Use a monopod to help avoid camera shake (especially without flash)

By doing this, you'll still have movement in the background, but anything lit by the flash will be frozen and in focus (hopefully ).

You might have to chimp & tweak according to the lighting.

I used this technique (both with and without flash) to take pics of a New Year's Eve dance recently (link).

HTH -
- Wil

Chaoslillith

I was using f2.8 and ISO 200-400 all night. As you can tell this was outdoors very low light. The exposure meter on my camera was in the red on underexposed all night which is why I was surprised these came out so well.

If I went about 400 I got too much noise so I stayed low.

Thanks!

Wineman

just loved number 6!!! her energy is really coming through... she's got rockstar energy!! the only thing that could have made this image better would be her 2 feet in the image, and not cut... but still I love the image!

I also like number 1 and 3, the guy with the cigar has a great expression on his face!

thanks for sharing.

Z.

Chaoslillith

Glad you liked!!

Thanks