Nightclub (well, bar) problem, any ideas?

Davince

Davince

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I am fairly sure the answer to this is going to be 'nowt you can do', but thought I'd double check lol...

I've taken on a job doing some photo's in a bar/club hopefully on a repeat basis. Last night was first proper night, generally they're not too bad. I'm set around ISO 1000 with 1/15th to 1/2 sec exposure to get a bit of mood to them, bounced flash with diffuser to give a bit of forward spill, typically running flash about -1ev but due to the shape of the bar it's almost impossible to get the clientèle to be stood more than a few feet from a surface - net result is that the flash is lighting up walls and pretty much annihilating any ambient light. To confound matters, the coloured ambient lighting is barely capable of overcoming the general lighting.

Any brainwaves on separating things out a bit in tight shots like that, and other than unscrewing all their white lightbulbs, on getting a bit more colour to them?!
 
I have this rash on my hands and would welcome your thoughts on what creams I should use....... What do you mean you need to see the rash?

Ok, a little tongue in cheek but your question would be better with pictures to show your problem, then folks can see what is wrong and how to help you put it right ;)

As for my rash, it's from doing the pots so I will leave that to 'er indoors from now on :D

Phil.
 
As you're already using quite long shutter speeds I'd consider upping the iso. You could then use a lower flash power which will balance better with the ambient light level and not light the walls as much.
Any extra iso noise, if any, can be cleaned up in post and would be hidden by resizing for facebook/web assuming that's the intended usage.
I've not done club photography, other than camera phone :) , but I think I'm thinking on the right lines.
 
How about you being the one near the surface, and take the photos of people with the bare - and other people - behind them?

Try to go for the busy people filled background rather than something less cluttered?

Also look at getting something more substantial than the diffuser to bounce the flash off, so you have more control over the light that does leave your flashgun and get less spill into other areas of the shot.
 
RichardtheSane said:
How about you being the one near the surface, and take the photos of people with the bare - and other people - behind them?

Try to go for the busy people filled background rather than something less cluttered?

Also look at getting something more substantial than the diffuser to bounce the flash off, so you have more control over the light that does leave your flashgun and get less spill into other areas of the shot.
Click to expand...

The majority of shots i'm getting that I'm happy with, that's what I'm doing - my back to a wall. The key requirement of the client is to show a busy, vibrant, fun atmosphere - lots of movement and light in the shots. It is, but some area's of the bar are literally 6ft wall to wall, it's a very odd shape and giving me a few headaches lol. They are also using LED lighting for the spots which changes from red to green to blue with such speed that some tests last night showed that anything over 1/25 on shutter results in them showing as white light!

I do love a challenge, this place is most definitely that lol.

I did think about a grid on a diffuser of some sort, may have to look into that.
 
I would think putting an example shot or two up, along with how many flash units/lamps and what accessories/triggers etc you have and then posting in the Talk Lighting sub forum would be worth doing.
 
I've had the same problem before but it turned out it was because I'd forgotten to turn the ISO down after I'd shot some video footage.

For the scenario you're describing I'd go full manual, 1/8 (as a starting point) f5.6 and ISO200/400 then adjust flash value.

You didn't give your Aperture setting but I guess if this was set at f8 the flash could be working overtime to try and get the exposure correct?
 
I would have thought the inverse square law applies. Rather than increasing ISO, reduce ISO. You want to shoot at a shutter speed and aperture that, without flash, gets you a fairly dark frame.

With the flash bouncing directly off the ceiling you should get a short spill of light which captures your subject with diffused light and to a lesser extent reaches the background. You can then control that foreground/background relationship with the strength of your flash balanced with your aperture.
 
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