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has anyone got any special tips they learnt from shooting in busy nightclubs first hand?

kind of interested in giving it a shot

do you absolutely need 2.8 or faster glass?
best focal range (for very crowded venues)? 17-35? 28-70?
shutter speed? 1/250th??
flash use?
flash ok to put onto hotshoe ad. or do you need a bracket?
focusing?


any other advice you can offer will be greatly appreciated

I have used the 28-70, regretted it, much heavier than the 17-35, and too long if you are at 1.5 crop. i think 17-35 would be perfect to get a bit more width/height

hand held flash, off camera, maybe arms length to one side for more natural, and more shape. gives you flexibility in your hand to flatten a big nose, or add cleavage, or fill shorter heights, or what ever.

oh, take the hood off, since you will lose it...

2.8 is not too shallow at 17mm, but can be at 35mm. maybe f4-5.6? depending on where you are, and what iso you choose to use for this purpose.

I shot an entire exhibition in an area called The Strip... in Chch, NZ. All of the images were shot on T-Max 3200 rated at 2000 ISO. Most of the images were shot using a fast wideangle lens... either a 35mm f2 or a 28mm f2 lens with the shutter speeds ranging from 1/15th of a second down to a 1/4. No flash was used through the project. The results can be seen on my website
http://www.anthonymckee.com/strip.html.

Before I can comment much by way of helping you I think you need to determine what you want to achieve and what you want to do with the images. Shooting without flash will capture the mood of the environment but shooting with flash will capture another element. Whatever you are considering I would say that a fast wideangle (zoom or prime) will make life easier composing and focusing in that kind of situation. It is also worth noting that you can handhold wideangles and gain better depth of field with a wideangle.

Hope this is a help!

...... I would try to do a pre shoot to check the lighting using the camera light metre...... or set up the camera to shoot a bracket of exposures

Anthony has got it right. Depending on what you're going for, you don't necessarily need faster glass however it does offer the flexibility. There are people who shoot with the 18-70 kit lens and output great pics.

If you're taking group photos, go for f5.6 so you have enough DOF to ensure everyone is sharp. If you're capturing ambience, go wide aperture, high iso, slow shutter speed.

The 17-35 might end up giving distorted at 17mm so the 28-70 might be better.

Flash output on TTL and adjust the flash compensation to suit.

Well I don't have any experience, and I was pissed off my face, but these might give you an idea?

D70, 18-70 @ 47mm, ISO 200, RAW, 1/15, f4.5, built-in flash.

Taken at some joint in the Cross. Gets the job done I reckon:

It all depends on the club and how you have control of the shoot. If flash is allowed or not, and how high is the ceiling.

I shot a few times in clubs as official and guest photog, it was completely different for both occasions.

When I was shooting officially, I had to give shots back to the organiser and club, so shot had to be clean and with not much fancy stuffs in it.
Mostly I stuck as: ISO 400, 1/15 - 1/60, f/3.5 - f/5.6, using a 28-70 at 28-35mm range most of the time. Flash was on bracket and monopod aiming at a low ceiling, gave me a very nice bounce and balanced the background light from the slow shutter. This setup is very clumsy and heavy, so big that attracts so many people in front of your camera. But being the official, does not really matter...

On the other side, while just as guest, I play around with stuffs, slow sync the flash and drag the shutter to 1" - 3" and 'zoom blur' the photo while slow sync freezes the subject in front... really nice but maybe not what people wanted...

it all depends on what you want to achieve, and what is your purpose.

Pehpsi wrote:and I was pissed off my face

And my most important advice to you wold be to not do this. Especially if you're getting paid: you need to look, and act, in a professional manner.

This also means acting as if you know what you're doing, irrespective of whether or not that's the case.

Lighting is probably going to be one of your biggest headaches, in terms of quality and amount. set a manual wb, so that you've got a solid base for all of your images, and shoot in raw. If you are able to use flash, use EFC and dial it down by about 2/3 or a stop, to help ad a bit of consistency to your images.

Focusing may also present a challenge, especially if the lighting is really bad.