Carnival photography

[light.and.dark]

Most of my photography is daytime and landscape, wildlife etc.. for the last week I have had the opportunity to photograph some of the parades for the carnival (similar to what you see in Rio de Janeiro. Mostly this is at night. Because this is something I am still learning I have been experimenting with different settings. And so to reduce movement blur I have been using apertures between 3.2 and 6.3 with my sigma 70-200 usually. I was using high ISOs 1000 to 2000 but there was still blurring so last night I used my Nikon SB 600 flash in TTL mode and the images are much better, but the shallow dept of field is disappointing, I know I could increase the aperture but dont want to lose the light. As you can see I could really use some good advice on what are the best settings and technique for these sceens.

I have attached some of my photos as examples.

Thanks very much for any help

 

[Usul]

You can get closer to your subjects and set minimal focal distance. So you can use slower shutter speed without bluring and it will slightly increase DoF becouse it depends of focal range and distance to the subject.

 

[BeachDesign]

I do photography at Raves, which can actually end up quite like a carnival occasionally. Try using a lens with a higher aperture, I usually shoot at 2.4 at night time events. I would use a closer range lens, I've had pretty good results with my default 18-55mm lens in the past. Long exposures are a lot of fun at night-time events as well, you can get some really interesting shots, which would look pretty interesting at a carnival I'd imagine. Here's some examples of event photography, the 1st, 2nd, and 4th image are all long exposures with flash, and the third is shot from 50ft away without flash.

Hope that helps, cheers.

 

[tirediron]

This sort of work relies a LOT on the gear you're using. You need a body that produce decent images at ISO 3200 and up; you need a fast lens (50 1.4, 85 1.4) and you need to get in close.