Advice on shooting in a dark and dingy bar

[Macno]

Need some advice guys. How would you go about shooting in a dimly lit bar? I want to shoot the acts on stage which of course should be well lit but also the punters who might be sitting around watching in dark corners.

Would you use on camera flash or what?

 

[KenC]

I don't know what "dark and dingy" bars are like where you are, but here it might be dangerous to shoot people sitting in the dark watching a show with a flash. Depending on how dark it is, you might be able to get something at high ISO with a fast lens. What is your ISO capability and what lenses do you have?

 

[tyler_h]

On camera flash is useless for virtually anything.

I say avoid flash, fast lenses and bump the ISO a bit.

Shooting in dark areas shouldn't be too much of on issue. This is from before I picked up a nifty fifty:

2010_12_18_3899 by tyler_s_hamilton, on Flickr
(small so I'm not getting in the way of your thread too much)
550D with 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 at 55mm; 1/60 | f/5.6 | ISO 3200 | (-1 EV)
A f/2.8 zoom will go ok but faster primes would be better really.

The shot is lit by ambient light from a popcorn machine (so not much) in an otherwise dark club.
You can see that f/2 would allow ISO 400 or ISO 800 and a faster shutter which would help a lot.

Basically; don't be afraid to raise your ISO though; a noisy shot is better than a blurry shot in many circumstances...

 

[Macno]

I don't know what "dark and dingy" bars are like where you are, but here it might be dangerous to shoot people sitting in the dark watching a show with a flash. Depending on how dark it is, you might be able to get something at high ISO with a fast lens. What is your ISO capability and what lenses do you have?

Well this place has a few lamps and wall lights but it is quite low lit. The walls are painted a deep purple too so there is no light reflection. It is a very funky venue, full of art works and retro furniture so I'd like to also be able to capture some of that as background.

I have a D7000 so ISO is no problem but at the moment I only have one lense (looking for another) which is a Tamron 17-50 f/2.8.