Shooting in a dark bar.

[MicRoq]

Hello! I'm just starting to broaden my horizons in the digital photography world and was wondering if anyone could give me some tips. I'm "hired" to shoot my friend's hip hop show in a few days and need some suggestions to guide me as far as camera settings and flash use. I'll be using a Nikon D40x with an 18-70mm lens in a dark bar with minimal light. I also have the option of using an external flash, to use or not to use? Thanks a lot!

[sybren]

As you're going to shoot in a dark place, it's important to know the lens you're using. It's 18-70mm, but how fast? F/5.6? F/2.8? Does it have IS/VR? This not only affects how much of the available light will get in, but also influences your flash.

As far as flash use goes - it depends on the artists and the venue. Mostly you can forget using bounce flash as most venues have black walls and ceiling. This means that a piece of tupperware such as a Stofen diffuser will not only be useless but a waste of flash power. Most artists don't like the flashes either. See whether you can catch the person in charge of the lights, and ask for a bit more white light.

Most importantly - practice in holding the camera steady. Make sure you have solid footing, press your elbows against your body, and mind your breathing.

I have a regular gig shooting portraits of bartenders for the local paper. My standard setup is:

Canon T1i
Sigma 24-70mm f2.8
ISO: 400
App: f2.8
Shutter: 1/100
Canon 580exII, bounced off whatever I can find (lol...last time I had a guy in a white T-shirt stand to the right of me a few feet )

This usually works. Occasionally I'll hit a place where the walls or ceiling are a funky color and have to improvise a bit (like the guy in the white t-shirt). Omnibounces work, but I usually don't like the flat-light they put out, and prefer a more directional.

If you have two flashes or a remote flash trigger, you might try placing one of the flashes a little to the side for some directional light (or if you know what you're doing, put it behind them )

[Free]

Hey, I'm guessing you have the Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED?

In which case you're really going to struggle getting decent pics of a gig

You can't really bump your ISO past 800 on a D40 (I'm assuming it's no better than my D60?) so you'll be shooting pretty slow in most bars I visit. At my first gig I took around 200 shoots and came back with less than 10 that weren't too blurry from either camera shake or the band moving.

If you can, get hold of a faster lens, the 35mm f/1.8 is fairly cheep! Check out the gigs set in my flickr, the oldest are with the kit lens at around f/4 and the new ones with the 35mm @ f/1.8 You can really see the difference.

I took some with my flash off camera, while shots came out well exposed they lost all the feeling that goes with good gig photos.

One tip I picked up somewhere (probably here) was that if there's lot's of red light (hello small bars!) then convert everything to B&W as you can't correct the colour properly under the red lights.

Good luck

[agc970]

i am guessing your lens is the kit lens for your D40. I have the D60 with the kit lens and it only opens to f/3.5. You will want to have your aperture open all the way and have an ISO of at least 400. It's probably a good idea to shoot in aperture priority mode unless you are really comfortable working in full manual mode. You may also consider taking a small gorilla pod with you for some stability when you're able to use it. Good luck!

[MicRoq]

Thank you so much everyone! All of your suggestions were very helpful. I decided to upgrade my equiptment to a D60 with a 35mm 1:1.8 lens, and the aperture priority is on. I'll post picures after the show. Thanks again!

[Free]

Originally Posted by MicRoq

Thank you so much everyone! All of your suggestions were very helpful. I decided to upgrade my equiptment to a D60 with a 35mm 1:1.8 lens, and the aperture priority is on. I'll post picures after the show. Thanks again!

Good show, that's an awesome lens! I use it nearly every day

I'd suggest practicing shooting in manual as the camera is going to try to expose the shot a bit more than you'll actually want to, the highlights will more than likely blow out and you wont get the bright and dark look. I imagine you could shoot aperture priority and just exposure comp down, but I haven't tried it. I found that after a couple of test exposures you will hardly need to change you exposure all night once you've got it right (unless the lighting changes heaps of course).

Look forward to seeing the pics!

[dotunadeng]

hello everyone, i am trying to learn as much as i can from this thread. I am trying to figure what the settings are to get pictures this clear in a dimly lit bar, and also interested in the color tone in the pictures. Do you think the color tone is as a result of post processing or what?
I will really appreciate your responses and advices.