Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I'm new in photography and recently just bought a Canon Rebel Ti. I was wondering if anyone can give me advice on equipments I need or tips in order to shoot at a night club.

Right now I only have: External flash 430EX II and portrait lens 50mm

do you have a flash cord to get the flash off-axis?

and drag the shutter to get the club lights in there!

No, I don't have one yet.

I haven't done it but I can definitely tell you you need a wider angle lens. We have a user on our board named "luchini11", he shoots at clubs every Friday/Saturday. I would send him a quick PM to see if he can give you any pointers.

Hey chopper, if he's new he probably doesn't know what that means...

Quick tip: meter the scene to see what exposure you need to get the colour/ambience of the lights already in the room, without using flash. You can either put your camera in "M" mode and play with the settings until a test shot looks right (or don't take a shot and let your camera meter tell you it's right), or choose one of the auto modes like "A" or "P", and remember the settings. For example, it might be ISO 800, f1.8, 1/10 sec. You don't need to keep the shutter speed so slow, e.g., you can get away with 1/20 of a sec and still have the club lights register in the scene, it's up to your taste. So put your camera in "M" mode now if you haven't already done so and change it to those settings. Add the flash. The rest of the brightness in your shot will be made up from the flash, and it will do that automatically despite your camera being on manual mode. You might have to play with Flash Exposure Compensation ("FEC" button, if it has one) to turn the flash down or up to your taste.

If you don't do it this way, i.e., you set the shutter speed a lot faster (e.g., 1/80 or 1/120 or whatever) or put the camera on "Auto" mode only your flash is lighting your shot and you lose the colour from the club lighting, and thus lose the ambience/mood of the club. That's basically the purpose of "dragging the shutter"-- to keep your exposure long enough for the natural ambience to register in the photo, but you risk blurry photos.

Alternatively, you could put your camera in "A" mode, f1.8, set the exposure compensation down -1 or something like that, and see where that takes you, and adjust to your taste.

You have to give yourself time to learn the "personality" of your camera. For instance your camera may have ISO6400, but anything above ISO1600 is too noisy for your liking (but you won't know that until you try it).

Pick the darkest room in your house, get some 40watt coloured incandescent bulbs, and practice (the lamps in the club are brighter, but the lights in clubs are further away from the subjects so it will give you a similar intensity.

Thank you everyone for your great tips : )