Photographing Indoor Parties And Other Events

[prince]

Hello,
Some backstory on what I am trying to achieve.. goal is to get perfectly lighted shots.

Yesterday I was shooting an indoor birthday party for a friend. This was a not a paid gig, but I took this opportunity to learn the technique for shooting indoor parties.

The room had a low ceiling so I decided to use bounce flash (no TTL) with a small white reflector that comes with the flash. WB was flash.. and images were in JPG.. this was on purpose but for some reason I don't like the way JPGs came out. I think the problem was with incorrect WB.

What are your typical settings for indoor parties/events? Especially related to
AF (do you select the focus points or let the camera do that?).. For portraits I select the focus points manually.

WB?

Flash?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

[graciousness]

Any reason why you decided to use jpeg instead of raw files?

Indoor parties are tricky because balancing ambient with flash gets a little trickier depending on the lighting (or lack of it) in a room. You always have to constantly adjust your flash (or ISO), look for where you can bounce your flash off, see how many people or subjects you want focused in that one shot, etc. If the house has different lights (tungsten and florescent) then you have to take that into consideration especially at night. If you are using jpegs, it is especially important to gel your flash.

You used a reflector for a party indoors? You would have lost the candidness or spontaneity of your shots if you have to set up reflectors just to light your subjects. You would have made them aware that the camera is pointing at them, then possibly pose or move away. I like capturing the spirit of the party or event by taking candid shots.

By the way, when shooting parties whether indoors or out, you are asking for almost the impossible or plain boring shots if your aim is to have perfect lighting for every shot. You simply don't have control of the ambient light, subjects and space. Unless you stick a lighting set up (stand, strobe, diffuser) somewhere in the corner of a room and make people stand there to take the shots, you simply have to accept the fact that not all shots will be perfectly exposed.

[prince]

Originally Posted by graciousness

Any reason why you decided to use jpeg instead of raw files?

Indoor parties are tricky because balancing ambient with flash gets a little trickier depending on the lighting (or lack of it) in a room. You always have to constantly adjust your flash (or ISO), look for where you can bounce your flash off, see how many people or subjects you want focused in that one shot, etc. If the house has different lights (tungsten and florescent) then you have to take that into consideration especially at night. If you are using jpegs, it is especially important to gel your flash.

You used a reflector for a party indoors? You would have lost the candidness or spontaneity of your shots if you have to set up reflectors just to light your subjects. You would have made them aware that the camera is pointing at them, then possibly pose or move away. I like capturing the spirit of the party or event by taking candid shots.

By the way, when shooting parties whether indoors or out, you are asking for almost the impossible or plain boring shots if your aim is to have perfect lighting for every shot. You simply don't have control of the ambient light, subjects and space. Unless you stick a lighting set up (stand, strobe, diffuser) somewhere in the corner of a room and make people stand there to take the shots, you simply have to accept the fact that not all shots will be perfectly exposed.

For client work I never use JPEGs, but for this one I wanted to save on time for processing huge RAW files, plus I wasn't planning to do any post-processing on them.. More like snapshots..

What I meant by reflector is the small white cards that come attached to some flashes.. like this one

I prefer candids too that way you don't have people posing all the time.. it was hard to get candids for this one.. mainly because I was bouncing the flash and other there were around 25 people so it was kind of hard to not get noticed.. still managed quite a few candids.

I bumped the ISO to 400 and aperture was mostly around f4 with shutterspeed around 80-100 to find a balance between having enough people in focus, good ambient light, and less noise. I should have taken a chance by keeping the ISO to 800, may be.. I may not have needed the flash then..

That's why I asked what is a good settings range to start with..

I was using Nikon D7000, Sigma 17-50 F2.8 with YN560 flash to bounce.

Thanks for your tips graciousness.

[Rentham]

Originally Posted by prince

What are your typical settings for indoor parties/events? Especially related to AF (do you select the focus points or let the camera do that?).. For portraits I select the focus points manually. WB? Flash?

I start at f/2.8 at 100th and 800 ISO. White balance depends on the color temp of the ambient light. Tungsten is usually a good starting point, so you'll need to gel your flash. Things can get dicey if the ambient is mixed lighting. Depending on the scenario I've used full CTO, 1/2 CTO, and straw gels.

[prince]

Originally Posted by lionel1

You should have a good lighting to take a good quality cleat picture I guess you can now have nice indoor picture.

I know and that is exactly what is missing from indoor parties. Hence, the question.

Originally Posted by Rentham

I start at f/2.8 at 100th and 800 ISO. White balance depends on the color temp of the ambient light. Tungsten is usually a good starting point, so you'll need to gel your flash. Things can get dicey if the ambient is mixed lighting. Depending on the scenario I've used full CTO, 1/2 CTO, and straw gels.

Thanks Rentham. That gives me a good reference to start at. I will need to start looking into using gels for my flash. Would you use gels even when you are bouncing the light? Sorry, I got little unsure whether you meant using gels when using direct flash or bounce flash or both.

[Rentham]

Originally Posted by prince

Thanks Rentham. That gives me a good reference to start at. I will need to start looking into using gels for my flash. Would you use gels even when you are bouncing the light? Sorry, I got little unsure whether you meant using gels when using direct flash or bounce flash or both.

Yes, you'd need to gel your flash regardless if you bounce or not. Many indoor venues have tungsten lighting. If you set your camera to tungsten WB that will bring the ambient lighting to neutral but cause everything illuminated by your flash to go blue. To get your flash color temp back to neutral you need use a gel. A full CTO (color temperature orange) usually does the trick for tungsten.

Bouncing your flash off colored walls will create some kind of cast, but that is the reality of this kind of event photography. I'd rather deal with a slight cast than direct on-axis flash.

[prince]

Thanks Rentham. That's helpful advice.

[Dieseldoc]

For the indoor shots I have always used a custom white balance with diffused bounce flash. I have found that using the custom white balance greatly helps with the varied types of ambient lighting found at indoor events. To get my custom white balance I use an expo disc which makes it a simple process.

[ccting]

Originally Posted by Rentham

I start at f/2.8 at 100th and 800 ISO. White balance depends on the color temp of the ambient light. Tungsten is usually a good starting point, so you'll need to gel your flash. Things can get dicey if the ambient is mixed lighting. Depending on the scenario I've used full CTO, 1/2 CTO, and straw gels.

straw gels?

I printed these colors on transparency.. is these the correct CTO?

CTO =?? CTO.jpg

CTO =?? CTO.png

I thought we should use window green gel for power saving bulb lighting?

I always use ISO 1600, 1/60s. With flash the subject remains noiseless. Am i true?

[RichardTaylor]

@ ccting

Quote
I always use ISO 1600, 1/60s. With flash the subject remains noiseless. Am i true?
End quote.

Why do you think the "subject" remains noisless when using a flash?

You may be interested in reading this.
Digital Camera Image Noise: Concept and Types

and this.
Expose Right

Take some correctly exposed test shots and see for yourself.