Party Night

[marshblake]

Hi Everyone just like to say hello im new to photography well DSLR photography not point and shoot. Ive recently upgraded from a bridge camera to a 400d with a few lenses and a hotshoe flash.

The question i have is ive been asked to take some pictures at a social event tonight, the room that is being used, has a stage, 50 people sat down, obviously there will be very little light apart from disco lighting for the performances. What lens should i use? Nifty fifty? My kit lens? or my 70mm-200mm lens? What ISO? exposure? aperature? and Flash strength? Id like to get some really good shots without having to keep trying to mess around with the settings. I intend to use manual settings on my camera

Any help you can give me people would be much appreciated

thanks

[marshblake]

anyone?

[emily16]

Im no expert and still learning myself, but depending on the size of the room i would say use kit lens or the 50mm, as i would have thought the 70-200mm will be too narrow unless you will be far away from your subjects then this could be a the right lens!
As you probably know increasing ISO increases noise so if your going to use a tripod then stick to ISO 100 or 200, if not use the lowest ISO possible for handheld to keep noise to a minimum. I found when i tried to shoot christmas lights the lights came out slightly blurry/milky. I used around f/22 so maybe lower but i cant be sure this would be right for you.
As for flash i dont have a flashgun so am unable to help there!

Sorry i cant help more but i believe what i have told you is right from other help/experience but i may need to be corrected!

[marshblake]

Thanks everyone for the replies, after your advice, i still had to mess about with all settings, using hotshoe flash i didnt realise it was that hard, sometimes the exposure was good then other times the background was blown out by the flash or just too dark. I did try multiple modes such as AV,P,M modes and tryed different aperture settings. But it was very hit and miss, i found it really hard to gain a consistent shots Guess ill just have to keep practising.

Thankyou

[Cathus]

Flash is one area which is not very well understood by a lot of photographers (myself included). It's surprising how all the different settings affect the flash exposure & not in ways that are immediately obvious.

Hope you got some good shots though.

[marshblake]

@cathus, im hoping a few good shots appear when i download onto exif, ive looked on the forum and only recently picked up a copy of a photography magazine that was dedicated a few pages to portrait photography but as youve said flash photography seems like something thats overlooked or skirted upon. If anyone has any links on dedicated flash photography especailly say at social events, in a pub, function room, nightclub would be most appreciated may even help me improve shots some.

[cosmicma]

the problem with social events is it's a social event not a photoshoot and the best you can hope for is a few photo's of people having fun
thyere not really there to pose for a camera and every thing is stacked against you the lighting is all wrong your using a single flash and to cap it all the people there arn't that interested in you pointing a camera in their general direction ( thats untill theyv'e had a few and are in no fit state any more ) so the best advice i can give is catch em early and get the photo's
try and bounce the flash so the lighting isn't as harsh if you've got a diffuser use it if not botch one together a piece of milk carton will do it will make a lot of difference to how your photo's turn out

the camera settings i would go for ISO 100 around F8 and 1/60th shutter speed to catch as much ambiant light as possible

as said by emily16 keep the iso low ( 100 will be fine ) to minimise noise because there's gonna be a lot of dark areas in your photographs and any noise will show
at the end of the day it's something your gonna have to experiment with a good idea is to go outside in the dark and take a few photo's with the flash and see what works it will give you an idea of what to ecpect in a big room ( sort of )

[Baffled]

Like Emily I am no expert. I agree with everything that has been said so far. Regarding the flash diffuser, a trick which I have used to effect in the past, is to stick a small piece of tissue paper over the flash and rather than taking posed photos, take random ones with varying angles. Photos taken at social functions are probably the photographs most often taken. However, they are also the hardest for the reasons stated. Good luck.

____________________
John

[Baffled]

Hi Marshblake, I know that the event, which you were attending has past. However, I have noticed that there is an article in the January edition of "Digital Camera" (Page 76) explaining how to make a flash diffuser. There is also a snippet about their use on page 53. The information might be of use in the future. Hope this is of use.

______________
John.

[Baffled]

Forgot to mention, it's my age There is also a pull out supplement to the magazine regarding DSLR skills which covers basic flash techniques.

________________
John.