Nightclub/band photography

[jjbacoomba]

I am new to photography and I have been practicing alot. I love my new hobby. I want to photograph bands in nightclubs. I have tried a few times, but with no success. Either under or over exposed. I want to know if anyone can tell me what modes, and most used settings that they use. I was shooting in manual.I tried with and without flash. Thanks, Joe

[jiro]

Shoot with the highest ISO setting with low noise that your camera can handle (typically ISO 800 or 1600), a wide aperture that you can use (typically f1.8 to f2.8), shoot in manual mode then fire the shots. The April/May 2011 issue of the "Photoshop User" magazine discusses this in wonderful detail with lots of real life example of images. Hope this helps, Joe.

[jjbacoomba]

Thanks Jiro. I will give it a try. I wil lok for that issue. Rock On!! Joe

[Nomadr]

take lots of pictures,keep shooting in manual,what i tend to do is watch where the lighting hits the performers,take a few shots with your iso at acceptable levels and your lens as wide as it can go,then do a quick check on your histograms,if your finding they are blown out then drop your iso first and if need be close your lens down a stop, stage lighting can be a nightmare but you should get a few keepers,i practice on pub bands like this shot,cheers martyn

[Nomadr]

couple more points, try and get some interaction and dont worry if you get movement blur due to slow shutter (i tend to work with between 80th sec and 125th sec),cheers martyn ps pretty naff pics but i was only practicing,lol.

[Dave Humphries]

I'd agree with advice above from Willie and Martyn - and in case you're wondering "why leave it wide open?" - well, because the backgrounds are always going to be 'nightmare' cluttered and you need the reduced DoF to help keep the image viewers attention on the subject.

[jjbacoomba]

Thanks everyone.Cool pics Martyn! I have a Pentax kits lens DA zoom 18-55mm F3.5-5.6AL, and a Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3. I also have a tripod and a shutter release cable. Thanks for the tip Dave. Hopefully I will get some practice in and post some of the results. Thanks, Joe

[Noice]

you would definitely need a lens faster than 3.5
try a prime.

as mentioned above, i too, try to time my shots with the lighting as i do not use flash at all.
I also shoot RAW so i can color correct and tweak the exposure accordingly later on.

[Nomadr]

primes are a good and quite cheap, another thing you could try is spot metering but you would have to be pretty fast because the light usually changes quite rapidly, cheers martyn

[Colin Southern]

primes are a good and quite cheap, another thing you could try is spot metering but you would have to be pretty fast because the light usually changes quite rapidly, cheers martyn

Spot metering wouldn't work well, unless you were well versed in either spotting a medium grey equivalent colour, or lightning fast on applying your compensation. eg if you spot-meter a black shirt than you'll need to immediately add up to 2 stops of -ve exposure compensation.

Personally, I'd max out the ISO - open up the aperture - work out what shutterspeed gave me a good exposure, and just run with that. Alternatively, partial metering should give a pretty accurate result. A lens with IS or VR will help a lot.

[Noice]

using the most basic (relevant...as in not yet obsolete) canon DSLR, i max my ISO to 800
anything over that is just unacceptable.

i usually run with this setup and hope for the best:
MF using the distance scale on the lens
1/8-1/15
2.8/17mm (fastest i have beside a prime)
iso 800