Night event photography

[limecity]

Camera: Nikon D50
Lense: 18-55mm f3.5-5.6, Sigma 28-105 f2.8-4.0
Accesories: SB800

I had my worse photography outing last night when I was shooting a parade which was going on at night. I would say this is my 1st outdoor open-air night event photography.

I became hopepless when there were no ceiling to bounce light. I just couldn't get the right photo taken.

I wanted to use the external flash and yet maintain the natural lighting of the surrounding especially the building behind.

Most of the photos taken were either overexposed or underexposed or totally blured.

The only good ones were the one with ISO 1600 which makes the photo darn grainy.

So my problem is, whats the best way to take photo of a night parade with this condition.

- lot of moving subject infront and you are standing very near
(which you can't possibly use direct flash)

- with no ceiling or any way you can bounce your flash
(except for bounce card where it doesn't give a very good result either)

------------

So what do you do?

 

[D40]

All I know of is a tripod and a fast lens, but then again I am not a pro When I was shooting the night concert I ran into the same thing. I got the best results in Shutter Priority and Aprture priority. The ISO was 400. I did get blur on some of them though when using the camera ready modes.

 

[Garbz]

Experiment. Unless you can provide your own light there is no right way to get this photograph. My first line of attack would be tripod and slowsyncing to get a neat ghosting effect. My second would be to bump the ISO up, and when doing so run the result through NeatImage or another noise removal tool of choice. If I must use flash then I would probably hold it to my left and fire it remotely so the image doesn't appear flat.

 

[limecity]

thanks for the reply guys.

hmm i tried will all sort of angle of degree on the external flash but it doesn't give much of what i want.

I will try separating the external flash next time if i have the chance again to shoot the parade again. thanks for the tip.

Would the lightsphere flash accesories be anyhelp in such condition?
i never tried one of it before

 

[jstuedle]

Use a very fast lens, like the inexpensive 50mm f/1.8. If you have some old cheap manual strobes, set them up to fill the subject/s at a distance, say 75 to 150 feet. Something like a Sunpack 383 will fill a good distance at 1/2 power ISO 800, f/1.8 or f/2.0. The cheap way would be to use a sync cord to the first flash, then Wein peanut photo slaves for and additional strobes. I gave up on cords a while ago and now use pocket wizards. The pic below was taken during a live gig at "The Madison Theater" northern KY. If you look closely you can make out 4 shadows of the guys head bottom left corner near my sig. The strobes were at 1/2 power, 125 feet and gave an exposure of ISO 500 @ f/4 - f/5.6 depending on where on the stage I metered. This was way to hot for the application, but I was unable to get access to the strobes after the initial setup. ( They locked out the balcony ) If you diffuse the strobes more than I, then the shadows will be less pronounced, or non-existent. The more strobes you can setup, the more even the fill and the better the light quality. This method would only work if you knew in advance the exact location you would be shooting, wandering through a large event it would be almost impossible to light this way.