I'd like to share a video-tutorial, and discuss some of the issues
raized (but not necessarily addressed) in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddmKt9iWwVU
While most things in the video might be obvious to people who have tried
to shoot at this type of venues (like Larry), I thought it might still
give some useful ideas. E.g. I haven't thought about trying the ring
flash. (Larry, have you?) I am still not sure a ring flash offers any
advantage (and not having one, I cannot try it myself). But having seen
this video, I am thinking if using the sources with what I call for myself
"stencils" (I am drawing blank right now on what those are called - a few
PDMLers had shown here their studio potraiture work with those sources.)
This video might also a reasonable introduction into the topic for the
"newcomers" to the scene.
(Should I have spelled that as "newcamer[a]s"? ;-) )
I haven't been shooting at "real" nightclubs, - only at geeky dance
scenes, but the environment is very similar: dark dance floor, some weird
lighting, sometimes rapidly changing. And I found there is no
"silver bullet". All venues are different, and some things work better at
one, and not that well at another. So, the solution is to try and decide
what works the best on the spot.
As for the video, seeing the lights on the wall, I was hoping the guy
would show some ideas of how to get them into the shot, but I didn't
notice any shot where those would show up. (I was expecting that they
would when he was using an LED source.)
I know it is hard. I previously shared some attempts.
Sometimes (close to the stage with the band playing live) you can
find more light and shoot with just a fast lens and high ISO:
http://42graphy.org/swing/lvfx/Jan4/_IR01469.html
and it can spill over on the nearby dancers:
http://42graphy.org/swing/lvfx/Jan4/_IR01329.html
In other cases, you have to resort to a flash:
http://42graphy.org/swing/lvfx/Jan4/_IR01300.html
In this case it was a direct flash
(I don't remember I may have had a Gary Fong Cloud diffuser).
The ceiling there was _very_ high and not reflective, and the room was
huge, so, no walls were nearby. In this case the lights in the back came
out well.
The use of flash allowed to freeze the fast motion of the dance, and the
separation from the back wall assured those colored lights were not
overpowered by the flash.
But I still don't have a good idea what to do in the situation shown in
the video so that the back lights would come out well.
Short of some sort of HDR (e.g. two images with and without the flash), I
am not sure if that would be possible.
Anybody?
Igor
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