Low Light People Pics (help!)

aFlabbyPanda

I've been taking some pics at gigs for my friends band who is having a CD launch this weekend. Now he wants me to take pics of the people attending just as I browse the club.

I'm worried if I just switch the camera (350D) to auto and shoot with the flash they will fairly bland, i.e. harsh shadows and over exposed faces.

How else can I set the camera (becoming fairly comfortable with manual now) so that I can get more balanced pics in low light? I have the kit lens & a 50mm 1.8

cheers.

Valentia

I don't know if this will help at all but have a look at the wedding pics on my flickr link below. Something like that might work giving a feeling of audience participation and movement. Camera set to av and flash away. Might be worth experimenting with anyway.

Oriel

Erm, I'd advise you to experiement somewhere else before you go

Shiny

It all depends on the lighting.

What is the name of the venue where you are shooting?

aFlabbyPanda

@ sinecura, I wish I could but I wont get the chance before friday.

@ shiny, its going to be pretty dark, Its in cyprus avenue in cork. think of any nightclub with a stage and thats about it. (or it was last time anyway) I'm hoping the house lights will be brighter this time.

bloke

BrianjG wrote:

How else can I set the camera (becoming fairly comfortable with manual now) so that I can get more balanced pics in low light? I have the kit lens & a 50mm 1.8

Hi Brian,

I've toyed with low light indoor photography at a couple of events over the last year or so with my 350D.

What worked best for me was to set the camera on manual at the lowest shutter speed you can handhold at without blurring (or maybe a stop lower as the flash will compensate for some movement). Too slow a shutter will give a motion blur around the subject as well as a "frozen" image from the flash. which you may or may not like. Then set the aperture wide open, assuming you're shooting indviduals. A wide open aperture on the 1.8 may make the DOF a bit shallow for comfort so you could stop it down a little.

The flash will then auto meter for exposure (you need to pop it up obviously!), while you're getting as much "normal" light as possible with the (relatively) slow shutter and open aperture. I found the results a bit dark initially and settled on Flash Exposure Compensation of 2/3 of a stop to give a balanced result.

I invested in an external speedlite too which seems to further soften the results and significantly reduce redeye at normal focal lengths.The speedlite also allows the use of bounce flash if there's a low white ceiling about - but unless you reflect some light forward too you'll get dark shadows under eyes. Speedlites are pretty cheap now -e300 for a 430ex on pixmania.

I'd avoid using AV rather than manual as this will probably choose too slow a shutter speed and give fairly blurry results - unless that's what you want If you want to capture more background detail try increasing the sensitivity (ISO setting) to 200 or 400. You get a litle more noise but I don't think it detracts too much from what are usually relatively casual looking shots anyway.

Hope this helps

aFlabbyPanda

WOW! thats great. Just what I was looking for. I'd prefer to avoid the blurred effect if possible and I didnt realise the flash would auto meter while on manual either. I'm not too bothered about picking up the background detail or DOF but want to achieve clear, balanced pictures instead.

Armed with the info youve given hopefuly I'll get something close to that. Cheers!