First Nightclub Experience (with a camera!)

PhilCollum

Not 100% sure this is the right forum for this... I was invited to a special event last Thursday night involving Dani Campbell, a reality-TV "star" from MTV's "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila". The event took place at a local nightclub... boy did I underestimate the crowd! I was amazined at the lengths people would go through simply to have their picture taken with "the star". :rofl

Anyway, someone else handled most of the "photo-with-the-star" shots, so I got to move around the club and capture the event. This was my first experience at photography inside a very-dark and very-crowded club, and it was tougher than I thought. Next time, I'm going to boost the ISO significantly. Most of these were between 200 and 400, but I think 1600 is a better bet...

Anyway, some pix for you to look at. Any C&C are more than welcome! I anticipate doing more nightclub gigs with this promoter, so any suggestions would be great.

1. The star Dani Campbell (on the right)

2. The scene

3. Dancing on the floor

4. In the spotlights

5. Having a drink

6. A group of friends

7. Fire dancer 1

8. Fire dancer 2

Thanks for looking!

Richard

Shooting inside a dark club is hard enough when the subjects aren't twirling torches. I think you did well. But I think you have the right idea to increase the ISO next time. As you say, you will get more noise, but some of that can be fixed in post.

Regards,

mr peas

I like the last one. Very nice!

Not much neon or what not in that club, when there is though, drag the shutter, stop down, and put some power to the flash.

Seriously use the flash on manual or bracket it so that it outputs more power because its always dimly lit. Also, I'm pretty use you're using a diffuser; try to compensate for the loss of light from it by bracketing the flash up to redeem your fotos from becoming underexposed.

Clubs are always fun especially when you finally get paid to shoot them. Be careful though, too much of a good thing (or bad ;p) is a bad thing (which is good?). Haha.. enjoy.

Mitchell

Nice series.

That last photo is hot!:hide

SCS_Photo

Very nice. I like to get a little into it when I shoot a club. I've got up on the bar with the girls dancin, Get up on those little tables attached to columns, Up on speakers... bust a move... have a lil fun... then people always pose for the guy with the big camera.

My fave setting is ISO 200, flash, f/8 or so, 1/2 to 2 second exposure. I have a thin leather strap on my cam, so I take the initial shot, then twirl it around to get funky lighting effects. Gives a sense of motion & craziness. But then again, it was ball state.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/socos/sets/72157603818615307/

Sometimes I also added a second off camera flash, manually activated.

Photosbychuck

Great Series

nedlA kraM

hahaha i love the guys expression in the last shot, and i don't blame him!!!

PhilCollum

Thanks for your suggestions, everyone. All the shots were full manual, and almost all were with dual flashes (one off- and one on-camera). The off-camera flash was set to fire about 1 stop brighter than the on-camera, and both were either difussed or pocket-bounced. I dragged the shutter anywhere from about 1/3 to a full 2", but my mistake was definately the low ISO - it didn't give me enough ambient light to work with without excruciatingly long shutter speeds.

I have another event in a couple weeks at the same club, and I'm going to try ranges between 400 and 1600, to allow a better shutter drag. I can't wait to experiment some more with this genre. I think I'll also try some second curtain syncing...

It was a great time, although the swinging fire did give me a scare! :uhoh

Thanks for looking.

PhilCollum

nedlA kraM wrote:

hahaha i love the guys expression in the last shot, and i don't blame him!!!

Amazing, I didn't even notice him until you mentioned it! (Guess my eyes were distracted elsewhere???)

CarnalSigh

Seriously use the flash on manual or bracket it so that it outputs more power because its always dimly lit. Also, I'm pretty use you're using a diffuser; try to compensate for the loss of light from it by bracketing the flash up to redeem your fotos from becoming underexposed.

I must be dumb. When I read this...all I see is....blah blah blah. Bracket a flash?? What the heck does that mean? Perhaps it's some term for on camera flashes. I've never used them so I rekkin I'm not up on the terminology.