Shooting a 21st birthday

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I'm going to shoot a mates daughters 21st bday party as a favour. Nothing paid and he's aware I'm not the most experienced. It's just a favour to save him walking round with his point and shoot and missing the party.

I just want to know of the lenses I have which is best to use?

I have a 18-55 IS kit lens, a 70-300 f4-5.6 canon lens and by then I will have bought a nifty fifty.

Will one of those lenses cover everything or should I use more than one?

What's the best tactic? He says he's mostly after candid type shots rather than stop an pose stuff but there will be a few pics of family to be taken.

Thanks in advance
 
I guess 30-35mm is the ideal focal length on crop, 50mm on FF.
 
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It depends on venue size and lighting, the smaller the venue the shorter the focal length needed but remember that short distances = distorted perspective.
Also low light will need fast lenses and some off camera or bounce flash
 
I've got a flashgun so obviously will be using that. I know the venue but I'm not sure of what room the party will be in. I'm pretty sure it's quite a large space. I'm tempted to go to the venue an investigate previous to the event.
 
18-55, flash on, put a stofen on it and point it almost straight up, angled slightly forwards. Aperture priority mode, f5.6, iso 800, and enjoy the party.
 
itsdavedotnet said:
18-55, flash on, put a stofen on it and point it almost straight up, angled slightly forwards. Aperture priority mode, f5.6, iso 800, and enjoy the party.
Click to expand...

Would AP not try to slow the shutter speed a tad as the light meter will know its dark? or does the camera know the flash is there and take this into account?
 
itsdavedotnet said:
18-55, flash on, put a stofen on it and point it almost straight up, angled slightly forwards. Aperture priority mode, f5.6, iso 800, and enjoy the party.
Click to expand...

Yup, aim for 1/200 as people do move and will lessen the chance of blurred hands etc...
 
So am i better off in manual? as i cant override the shutter in AP?

Manual, aperture of f5.6 shutter of around 1/200 and iso 800 - jobs a gooden?
 
1/200 f5 and floating iso would be my advice, unless you can get far enough away to use the 50mm When you could try opening up a bit further.
 
Would auto ISO cope?
 
Nikon or Canon? Nikon you can set the minimum shutter speed and max iso and it floats to the optimal setting. Works fine when you've got other things to worry about, like all automation its a compromise but worth ago.
 
steveo_mcg said:
Nikon or Canon? Nikon you can set the minimum shutter speed and max iso and it floats to the optimal setting. Works fine when you've got other things to worry about, like all automation its a compromise but worth ago.
Click to expand...

Canon - sounds like a good function though
 
You can set the max ISO under auto with Canon of course; would be nice if min shutter speed was an option under Av/Tv though. Canon's auto tends to just whack the ISO up to max allowed all too often for my liking though, can't say I use it much.

Isn't there something about Canon's automatically being linked to ISO 400 when using a flash...?
 
In Av mode with flash the camera will try to expose the background correctly using ambient light, if this means using a very slow shutter speed then it will do it. I think there's a custom function which stops the camera from going slower than 1/200 in Av mode with flash but ideally you would want to go slightly slower depending on the ambient lighting in the venue and whether or not you want any sort of background exposed in your photos.

The 18-55 kit lens will be absolutely fine.
 
Ok thanks for the advice guys :)

Any idea how to set that shutter speed limit? Never use it myself
 
On Canons, in Av with flash, the camera will lock down at ISO 400 if using auto ISO so practice in a low light area.
If not using flash in AV it will expose for ambient so may drop to very slow shutter speed.

Minimum shutter speed in AV on my 7D is custom fn 1-7
 
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Ah got ya thanks a lot :)
 
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