Low light party with no flash? Your thoughts needed..

[Nikon_Josh]

This Saturday I will be covering a friends birthday party in a dimly lit golf club.

I have no flashgun so this is not an option, also I am aware that flash can sometimes cause people to noticee the photographer alot more. So I feel I will get better candid results using no Flashgun at all.

Any tips or thoughts on this will be appreciated? I haven't even tried anything like this before, so am a complete novice in the area of low light people photography.

I have a Nikon D90 and will be using two fast lenses, the Nikon 35mm 1.8g and the Sigma 50 1.4 EX. I plan on pushing the cam to ISO 1600. Will I be able to get half decent results with fast lenses and no flash of people in a low light location such as this?

 

[MissCream]

Is it really dimly light? Like a bar? If so you will need a flash...

 

[480sparky39 38]

You can get some darn good shots. Make sure your white balance is dead-on unless you're shooting raw. What ISO you need is dependent on the light available.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Probably not. Your best bet is to raise your ISO super high, dont plan on cropping the images, embrace the noise! Noisy B&W would be good.

 

[Nikon_Josh]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I don't think it will be as dark as a dimly lit bar Miss Cream.

I like those shots 480 Sparky, thanks for sharing them! Were these High ISO/wide open?

Good point Schwetty, how do you use flash when doing weddings then? Do you ever use 'NO flash'? I'm assuming the flash needs to always be bopunced to get decent results.

 

[480sparky39 38]

ISO 800 for most of them. I just shot in auto exposure, with a manual white balance set using an ExpoDisc.

 

[KmH]

Using those lenses wide open will leave you with a shallow DoF. Such that you may see focus issues once you view the photos on a computer display.

The 35 mm f/1.8 not only delivers soft focus wide open, it also delivers purple fringing and significant lateral CA too when used wide open. The Sigma will only deliver shallow DoF and soft focus wide open.

The shallow DoF, and wide open soft focus, can be mitigated by stopping fast lenses down a few stops.

At high ISO settings, with any digital camera, it is imperative to nail the exposure when the shutter is released so the exposure does not have to be pushed post process.

 

[Nikon_Josh]

Using those lenses wide open will leave you with a shallow DoF. Such that you may see focus issues once you view the photos on a computer display.

The 35 mm f/1.8 not only delivers soft focus wide open, it also delivers purple fringing and significant lateral CA too when used wide open. The Sigma will only deliver shallow DoF and soft focus wide open.

The shallow DoF, and wide open soft focus, can be mitigated by stopping fast lenses down a few stops.

At high ISO settings, with any digital camera, it is imperative to nail the exposure when the shutter is released so the exposure does not have to be pushed post process.

Yeah, I am planning to not shoot completely wide open if I can help it. I will try to stay around 2.4 to 2.8 mark, giving me some DOF to work with.

Good point about exposure being correct, I am doing tests at moment and am noticing as long as I expose properly I can get pretty clean images at ISO 3200 shooting RAW. I didn't realise the D90 was this damn good at Higher ISOS! Impressive.

 

[DiskoJoe]

Id say go get a flash. You could probably get some good shots with no flash but you will probably miss just as many for this same reason.

 

[KmH]

I too would highly recommend using strobed light (flash).

Two stops down from f/1.8 is f/3.5, and I would recommend stopping down at least 3 stops with the 35 mm - f/1.8 to f/5.

You should be ok 2 stops down with the Sigma - no wider than f/2.8

 

[gsgary]

I would think you will be more at ISO3200, better to have a bit of noise than blur

 

[Nikon_Josh]

Thanks for the tips!

I take your points about Flash and I will definitely invest in one in the future, thing is with this location, it has extremely high ceilings, so I don't think I can bounce the flash off the ceiling anyway and if I do use it it will mean I have to be near a wall I imagine?

Just out of interest, I know flash has immense power specially for fashion/model shooting. But have you found you draw alot of attention to yourself as a photographer when using flash at a low light event? Or do people act like you don't exist still?

I guess I like the idea of capturing highly candid moments and I don't wish to ruin this, I imagine though when people are drunk they rarely notice a flash going off!

 

[KmH]

In a similar type of situation I use radio triggering and just hand hold the speedlight and use it direct at less than full power, rather than bouncing the light.

 

[shootermcgavin]

I'd definetely take the flash, the country clubs I can think of have horrible lighting. I also don't really like using the flash, but it's better to have one there if you need it than go and take 1000 black or blurry photos.

 

[Nikon_Josh]

In a similar type of situation I use radio triggering and just hand hold the speedlight and use it direct at less than full power, rather than bouncing the light.

Keith, Is using a bracket a good option?? So if your using flash at less power handheld... the light is not as direct or harsh and you don't lose the background all together?