Flash gun and night clubs

The 430EX will do just perfectly, pretty much any flash gun will do the job, pictures in nightclubs are more to do with the settings on the camera itself rather than having an awesome flash.
 
If you can afford the 580EXII, go for it. You can never have too much power, especially using a diffuser, and the 580 has quite a few more useful features that will come in handy if you want to expand into multi-flash lighting. In particular, the 580 can be used as master controller. And meanwhile, if you don't need the extra power, you'll benefit from faster recycling.

Edit: actually, I think it's untrue about the recycle times. When the 430 is flat out, and the 580 is only at half power (ie they are both putting out the same amount of light) the recyle times are similar.
 
Be careful using the flash on a cord in clubs, myself and a few other club togs have struggled to get it to focus. Works everywhere else, just not in clubs. A wireless transmitter works better (but obviously costs more).
 
ConfusedChicca said:
Be careful using the flash on a cord in clubs, myself and a few other club togs have struggled to get it to focus. Works everywhere else, just not in clubs. A wireless transmitter works better (but obviously costs more).
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And i'll be able to use a wireless transmitter with the 500D?

I'm only really asking because some of the effects you can get is better than having the flash attached to the camera, as i've been looking at other peoples nightclub pics and a few people are getting the background and the people in the background all lit up.

I think the diffuser is must have item in a night club cos sometimes the flash can overexpose in certain situations. unless i'm talkin out my ass haha! :thinking:
 
dannyd21 said:
And i'll be able to use a wireless transmitter with the 500D?

I'm only really asking because some of the effects you can get is better than having the flash attached to the camera, as i've been looking at other peoples nightclub pics and a few people are getting the background and the people in the background all lit up.

I think the diffuser is must have item in a night club cos sometimes the flash can overexpose in certain situations. unless i'm talkin out my ass haha! :thinking:
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Having the background bright isnt anything to do with the flash settings really, it is more to do with dragging the shutter so that it exposes the lights in the background.

I use a stofen on my SB600 and then on a TTL cord and this setup works fine for me, but as I mentioned earlier it also depends on you finding settings for your camera that work well in that particular club.
 
Sorry to jump in, but i'm interested. When you say using the flash off camera in a club, do you mean mounted on a bracket or holding the flash separately allowing you to move it where desire for each shot?
 
HoppyUK said:
If you can afford the 580EXII, go for it. You can never have too much power, especially using a diffuser, and the 580 has quite a few more useful features that will come in handy if you want to expand into multi-flash lighting. In particular, the 580 can be used as master controller. And meanwhile, if you don't need the extra power, you'll benefit from faster recycling.

Edit: actually, I think it's untrue about the recycle times. When the 430 is flat out, and the 580 is only at half power (ie they are both putting out the same amount of light) the recyle times are similar.
Click to expand...

I don't think i'll be expanding into multi-flash in a nightclub it'll be too much to carry about with me specially walking through the crowds of people LOL!

Thats what i was thinking with the 580 and having a diffuser the more power will be better to get the effect i'm after without having to wait too long for it to recycle, i just wanted other peoples views really. :thumbs:
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Sorry to jump in, but i'm interested. When you say using the flash off camera in a club, do you mean mounted on a bracket or holding the flash separately allowing you to move it where desire for each shot?
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No your more than welcome to jump in, i meant holding the flash seperately allowing me to position and bounce the light where i desire.
 
Slow shutter speeds and any suitable flash will give you nice colours and interesting effects. Plenty of background colour and motion blur with the flash freezing the action.
 
dannyd21 said:
I don't think i'll be expanding into multi-flash in a nightclub it'll be too much to carry about with me specially walking through the crowds of people LOL!

Thats what i was thinking with the 580 and having a diffuser the more power will be better to get the effect I'm after without having to wait too long for it to recycle, i just wanted other peoples views really. :thumbs:
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To give you an idea of what I generally use, I use a SB600 which is comparable to the 430EX and I usually use 1/16th power and ISO400 so I dont even use the full power of that, I have a more powerful SB900 (comparable to the 580EXII) and I would be on 1/32 or 1/64th power to get the same effect, the recycle times at 1/16th power are very small anyway.

bass_junkie83 said:
Sorry to jump in, but i'm interested. When you say using the flash off camera in a club, do you mean mounted on a bracket or holding the flash separately allowing you to move it where desire for each shot?
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I mean more on a TTL cord and then moved to a desired position, I usually have it positioned high left relating to the camera which gives a nice depth to the light :)
 
Cool. I got myself a little regular club gig to build up my experience so that is something i will have to give a go. :)
 
i have been doing night clubs and use the 580 EXII with no problem, even bouncing off dark ceilings seems to work ok.
 
dannyd21 said:
do you find it does the job enough for what clubs you go into?

do you have links to pics of your work? :thumbs:
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more than ample in some cases!

you can see some of my work here*.

*shots have lost quality by the time they have been uploaded by the webmaster.
 
I know this is an old thread...

Don't forget using wireless functionality (I only know Nikon gear)

If you are in a very dark club and using wide apertures to get background detail then you do need to be careful of course as depth of field is shallow.

Your main reason to go off camera is around shadows and skin tones.. important at say a wedding not so much in a club.

Tim

www.timothycook.co.uk
 
Harrogate Photos said:
I know this is an old thread...

Don't forget using wireless functionality (I only know Nikon gear)

If you are in a very dark club and using wide apertures to get background detail then you do need to be careful of course as depth of field is shallow.

Your main reason to go off camera is around shadows and skin tones.. important at say a wedding not so much in a club.

Tim

www.timothycook.co.uk
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Hi Tim,

I've just been looking at your pictures and they aren't what i'm talkin about.

They're more portraits and stuff.
 
I was shooting in a club saturday and with the flash on a cable high left I was having trouble focussing without the af assist and trouble getting the af beam in the right place

on camera it was fine but the light was less pleasing :(

any aiming tips?
 
david1701 said:
I was shooting in a club saturday and with the flash on a cable high left I was having trouble focussing without the af assist and trouble getting the af beam in the right place

on camera it was fine but the light was less pleasing :(

any aiming tips?
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Use a flash bracket to hold the gun up high, like this Manfrotto one £41 http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-manfrotto-mn233b-camera-flash-bracket/p11017

Or a mini softbox like this http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-lumiquest-big-bounce/p1007299 Very nice light but the AF assist is blocked, so...

Pre-focus on manual and shoot at a higher f/number so that depth of field covers any focusing errors.

Edit: forgot to say Stofen diffuser gives very nice light if there's a ceiling to bounce it off. I thought it was pretty much standard issue for club photography. Doesn't block the AF beam of course.
 
Depending on what kind of style you want you concentrate more on the camera settings than the power of the flash. You'll be in close proximity in complete dark so any flash will pretty much do the job. Here's a few of my club shots as an example.

6510643810a10552188558l.jpg


6510643810a11400710285l.jpg


6510643810a11629832081l.jpg


6510643810a11661977382l.jpg
 
Rikki said:
Depending on what kind of style you want you concentrate more on the camera settings than the power of the flash. You'll be in close proximity in complete dark so any flash will pretty much do the job. Here's a few of my club shots as an example.
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Loving 1 and 4 :thumbs: so what sort of settings would you use to achieve colours like that? Can that sort of effect be used without flash? Im always worried someone would knock the flash off the camera :nuts:
 
You need a camera that is amazing at high ISO, ramp the ISO up, use fast glass at its widest aperture and use a fairly quick shutter. Plus fine tune the camera for the environment its in for skin tone, background lights, curves, gamma and such like.
 
Ahh ok I tend to avoid using high iso because of the noise... but none of your images seem to suffer from that... Im using a Sony A700 and sigma 24-70mm f/2.8, that should be fast enough right?
 
Interesting one this, sorry to butt in but...

Recently took some pics at an evening wedding do. Happy with most except the depth of field in some. There seems to be a trade off somewhere with any indoor set up. In this case i bounced the flash the majority of the time occassionaly using direct with TTL minus a stop. My concern from other atempts was to get the shutter speed around 1/60 to avoid any shake. Apertures were either f2 or f2.8, iso 640.

I guess the only way to increase depth of field in this situation is upping the iso which was the trade off i didn't want ideally. What's the limits for shutter speed when using flash to helo freeze the subject, could i have dropped it a stop or more comfortably?
 
Depends on the light in the room, if its bright then the flash wont freeze anything as the ambient will still be subject to the shutter speed.
 
Rikki said:
You need a camera that is amazing at high ISO, ramp the ISO up, use fast glass at its widest aperture and use a fairly quick shutter. Plus fine tune the camera for the environment its in for skin tone, background lights, curves, gamma and such like.
Click to expand...

interesting my usual approach is low iso f2.8 v long exposure, I'll have to give your method a go on my next trip methinks
 
david1701 said:
interesting my usual approach is low iso f2.8 v long exposure, I'll have to give your method a go on my next trip methinks
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Thats what I would have done but then you get blured movements iirc going to try rikki's method and see what results I get :)
 
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