Kit lens for night-time bar shots w/flash

j-dogg · Jan 6, 2011

Good / bad? I shoot for a bar here and have been using a Canon Nifty Fifty 1.8 II, Tamron 18-270 Di-II VC and a 28-90 USM III. The 28-90 came with a 35mm EOS Elan 7e and the AF is pretty good in low light, much better than my Tamron and Nifty Fifty. I love the range on my Tamron and it's a pretty sharp lens but it blows big chunky nuts in low light a lot of times I just manually focus. The Nifty Fifty is great for bokeh and shots without flash. the 28-90 is ridiculously good in low light for some reason and I honestly can't tell the differences and the same F-stops between the three. I shoot on a gripped Rebel XTi with a Focal DA-2000 hotshot-mount flash (came with an EOS 650 for free) the whole setup gets the job done quite well.

So, good or bad? Feel free to post your setups I know we got a few bar photographers here.

j-dogg · Jan 6, 2011

Hahahahaha I knew someone would say it.

j-dogg · Jan 6, 2011

Actually getting paid doing this is totally new stuff for me and from the 3 or 4 times I've been shooting this bar I have gotten a LOT of contacts, enough to warrant making business cards, just want to ask the proverbial question "Amidoinitrite?" :lol:

j-dogg · Jan 6, 2011

Only because you asked for it.

One of these drunk people owns the camera that took this picture. The Indian guy next to him owns the bar. I barely remember these being taken but I would have had to have a LOT to let someone else play with my toys. :mrgreen:

These are all Tamron shots, batch processed nothing fancy. All of the 28-90 USM shots I took tonight look a little better than these, I still have to practice my flash exposure a little bit but I'm getting there. Tonight's shots look pretty decent.