Advice on night time street photography pls

Byrhtnoth

Byrhtnoth

Suspended / Banned
Messages
643
Name
Simon
Edit My Images
Yes
Theres a victorian evening being held in our local high street for a couple of evenings where everyone dresses up and all the shops stay open.
I would like to walk round taking some pics either with the kit lens (18-55) or a nifty fifty.

I have never tried this before walking around a public fair taking pics of people and it will also be dark.
So can someone give me some advice on camera settings etc?
 
Assuming that you don't want to use flash, then you'll be relying on the ambient light which if you're lucky might have a heavy reliance on candlelight. Either way high ISO is going to be a must I'm guessing. Shoot RAW so you can sort out the white balance later and also so you can pull back exposure later if you need to.

Personally I'd use the nifty - you can always open right up on that and the image quality will be higher than you'll get with the kit lens also.

I look forward to seeing the results!
 
Depends on how dark.

Too dark and you will need to use flash. If there is no available light then you may as well use manual and let the flash decide how much light to put out. If things are not too far away then 1/200th f5.6 and 100 iso. White things will reflect the flash back a may quench it too soon (something to think about when aiming). If the flash does not have power for the area size then widen the aperture and increase the iso if necessary.

If there is some available light use the 50mm 1.8 nearly wide open and 1600 iso and see what shutter speeds you can get in Av mode. Fast enough to hand hold then go for it.

With a proper flashgun it will put out IR beams to assist focus. On board flash will pulse out light to assist focus and upset everyone so you may have to switch to manual focus.

Nothing to stop you experimenting right now ;)
 
:agree: - use the 50mm and open it wide - with a reasonably high ISO, you should be fine.
 
I was out tonight, with an EFS 18-55 f3.5-5.6 IS lens on a 400D, wider would have been better
I reccommend taking the nifty 50, although if you could take both you could change lens if you found what you went with wasn't working.
 
Good luck - I cant give you much advice as I did the same thing myself last weekend, mainly failing dismally... flash settings seems to be the biggest problem, but definately try the 50mm opened up and high ISO's first, as the grainy look might just be perfect for the 'theme' :thumbs:
 
Thanks for the quick replies people.

RobertP said:
Too dark and you will need to use flash.

If there is some available light use the 50mm 1.8 nearly wide open and 1600 iso and see what shutter speeds you can get in Av mode. Fast enough to hand hold then go for it.

With a proper flashgun it will put out IR beams to assist focus. On board flash will pulse out light to assist focus and upset everyone so you may have to switch to manual focus.

Nothing to stop you experimenting right now ;)
Click to expand...
There should be enough available light, but think I might need to use the flash for fill-in. I have a speedlight 430ex although didnt want to start flashing infront of everyone :naughty: Think I will keep it attached just in case needed.

Didnt think of walking down the high street for a practise :bonk:
 
Steven001 said:
Street photography sounds good, but, I would be afraid someone would try to steal my camera, or just not take lightly to getting their photo taken. Do you usually ask people first?
Click to expand...

Im just taking my camera, lens and flash and hanging round neck. No camera bag tripod etc.
Not going to ask people, just walk around snapping catching them unaware (thats why i dont want to use flash), although I think some people will smile and pose. :D Atmosphere was very jolly last year :woot:
 
Byrhtnoth said:
Im just taking my camera, lens and flash and hanging round neck. No camera bag tripod etc.
Not going to ask people, just walk around snapping catching them unaware (thats why i dont want to use flash), although I think some people will smile and pose. :D Atmosphere was very jolly last year :woot:
Click to expand...

Good luck to you. Make sure you post some of the pictures. :)
 
Another vote here for the Nifty, I walk around London with it all the time, ive never had any problems with people reacting badly, just get in there and take the shots, you will be oblivous to most people and the people who do spot you will normally assume your there for a reason and not up to anything "naughty"

:woot:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top