Protective Clear Filter

Keeping fingers and everything else away from your electronic eye!

A must have regardless of how you use your camera. A clear glass protective filter is literary that. Sometimes known as a UV or skylight filter. It is a glass filter that screws onto the front of your lens to protect the actual lens glass and its protective coating.

Most photographers will tell you they will purchase one at the same time as a lens and many will never take them off except for cleaning. In a nightclub environment they will provide you with a way to stop people touching your actual lens and protect against the unavoidable instances of splashes and spills.

If you remove the filter prior to leaving for an event and clean the front element of the lens with a microfiber cloth and/or a blower, clean the filter and screw it back on your all set for a night of shooting. Never clean your actual lens with any fluids, even supposed lens cleaning fluids unless it is absolutely essential. With a filter attached this should be rarely.

You can purchase these for as little as £3 on eBay but in my experience, you can sometimes get what you pay for. Cheap filters can degrade the image quality so go a little more and try for a quality brand name like Hama or Hoya.

Microfiber Cloth

Keeping the lens clean and the pictures in focus.

I don’t need to explain this really. It’s a cloth that you use to keep your lenses clean. You don’t need anything special or expensive, it just needs to be a microfiber cloth like you would clean your glasses with.
You need to make sure you keep your cloth nice and dry. It will be useless to you if it gets wet as all you will do it make your lens dirty and make more smudges.
Try not to wipe your lens too often, you will remove or damage the protective coating on the lens itself. If you are using a clear protective filter you can wipe as much as you require to keep it clean.

Hand/Wrist Strap

Additional grip and peace of mind.

With the extra weight of a battery grip and a new, more expensive lens, it would be silly not to make sure you have a tight grip on your camera when in the middle of a crowd. There are several versions and they can range from £5 on eBay to £30-40 for an original version from your brand manufacturer. In all honesty, it is a simple device and the £5 will serve you just as well.

The versions you see above are just some of the styles you can get. I have the first one. It connects via your cameras inbuilt loop for the neck strap. You are supplied with a connection kit so you can attach the neck strap and the hand grip to the single right side loop. You also get a mounting bracket that’s attached to the tripod mount. If you have a battery grip it should have the bottom loop so you do not need the mounting bracket.

A worth while investment if you are prone to accidents and a must just for the fact that your camera will get bumps and bangs in heavy crowds regardless of how careful you are.

Neoprene Strap

Comfort is essential!

The strap that is included with your camera when you get is going to be your enemy when you are in a hot sweaty nightclub. It is probably rather rigid and when you are constantly moving your camera it will start to rub and cut into your next and become very uncomfortable, very quickly.

One of the most recommended upgrades (other than a sling strap) will be a neoprene neck strap. Made from the same soft material that wetsuits are made from, they are super soft, have a fair bit of elasticity which acts as a shock absorber or sorts and will not rub at your neck. It is also very grippy so it will not slip about.

Jessops have their own brand strap which is a good price at £12.95 (Dec 2011) and comes with quick release clips making it easy to detach when you need to.

Sling Strap

Quick access and freedom of movement.

A sling strap is a one shoulder strap in a continuous loop. The strap connects via your tripod mount with a special fixing. A sling strap allows to have the camera by your side and at a moments notice bring the camera to your face without having the strap tangle round your neck. It achieves this with the sliding loop.

Black Rapid make a selection of sling straps for men and women with a whole range of accessories that suit individual needs.

There are of course many other manufacturers of sling straps each with their own variation of the same basic sling design.

Lens Hoods

Protect the lens from bangs and bumps.

Above you can see the same lens with and without a lens hood.

The first purpose of a lens hood is to stop excess light getting into your lens and causing flares. The second purpose is to protect the lens. As you can see it protrudes quite a way from the front element and this is the benefit to a nightlife photographer. Moving through a crowded room you are inevitably going to brush past people and the hood will prevent the front of your lens actually being touched.

Most manufacturers provide bayonet style hoods with their lenses. They can be twisted 90 degrees to unlock them and remove them. You can then invert them and put them back on the lens to be stored and to save on space in your kit bag.

If you are not provided with one and original manufacturer version can cost up to £30 but you can find perfectly suitable third-party hoods if you shop around for less than half the price.

These are my recommendations for your first upgrades or investments.

Lens

We touched on Ultra-wide angle lenses in the previous post.

A 10-20mm lens is as much a nightlife photographers lens of choice as a 50mm would be to a wedding photographer. The curved effect the lens gives you produces photos which complement the environment they are taken in. Fun and energetic, just as if the subject is pushing out of the photo.

There are many great lenses you can choose, from a wide variety of manufacturers, but when cost is likely to be a factor for your first upgrade, here are a few you might want to consider.

Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM (*£378.38)
Sigma  10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM (*£469.00)
Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM Diagonal Fisheye (*£485.00)
Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM (*£549.00)
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 AT-X PRO DX (*£499.99)

*Best prices shown from CameraPriceBuster.co.uk

The Pros

• Ability to get up close to a subject and have more of the scene in the photo without having to step back. Compared to a kit lens at 18mm.
• Nice curved effect to the photos giving a much more dynamic look and feel to your photos.
• Great for wide stage or crowd shots.

The Cons

• Effectively no zoom capabilities. You will need to get up close if you want the shot.
• Can create a lot of empty and wasted space in photo if you are unable to get a good vantage point.

Battery Grip

That extra bit of staying power.

A battery grip is an add-on module that allows you to use two batteries at the same time. The will usually some with additional buttons replicating the main shutter, dial and other functions for easy access when using the camera in a portrait orientation. The grip fixes to the base of your body using the tripod mount screw mount and once it is on you can keep it on as the body also has a tripod screw mount on it. Some third-party grips (not made by your cameras manufacturer) sometimes come with an additional caddy allowing you to power the camera from six AA batteries should you need it in an emergency or run out of main battery power. Having two batteries will mean that you can shoot for longer without having to change batteries as often. You can still just put in one battery if you want, you do not have to have two for it to operate.

The Pros

• Effective shooting time increased by double.
• Easier to hold the camera in portrait orientation.
• Emergency power via AA batteries if required.

The Cons

• Makes the overall camera size bigger and bulkier.
• Extra weight can become uncomfortable during prolonged shooting.

Hand/Wrist Strap

Additional grip and peace of mind.

With the extra weight of a battery grip and a new, more expensive lens, it would be silly not to make sure you have a tight grip on your camera when in the middle of a crowd. There are several versions and they can range from £5 on eBay to £30-40 for an original version from your brand manufacturer. In all honesty, it is a simple device and the £5 will serve you just as well.

The versions you see above are just some of the styles you can get. I have the first one. It connects via your cameras inbuilt loop for the neck strap. You are supplied with a connection kit so you can attach the neck strap and the hand grip to the single right side loop. You also get a mounting bracket that’s attached to the tripod mount. If you have a battery grip it should have the bottom loop so you do not need the mounting bracket.

A worth while investment if you are prone to accidents and a must just for the fact that your camera will get bumps and bangs in heavy crowds regardless of how careful you are.

Sling Strap

Quick access and freedom of movement.

A sling strap is a one shoulder strap in a continuous loop. The strap connects via your tripod mount with a special fixing. A sling strap allows to have the camera by your side and at a moments notice bring the camera to your face without having the strap tangle round your neck. It achieves this with the sliding loop.

Black Rapid make a selection of sling straps for men and women with a whole range of accessories that suit individual needs.

The camera will do a great job at exposing the photo correctly by firing the flash to freeze the subjects. This will leave you with quite a standard looking snapshot.

As you can see from the above photo, the effect is quite flat and not very dramatic.

Now take the next photo for example…

To achieve this effect you  will need to know a little about how to operate your camera to set the following settings.

The basic starting point

Switch your camera into the ‘M’ mode via the dial on the top. This puts the camera into manual.

Leave all the other settings as they are, presuming you have not changed much from the default options and dial in the following options :

ISO : 400
Shutter : 1/4
Aperture : 3.5

The aperture has been based on a standard kit lens. This will work perfectly fine with any lens you are using.

By setting these options, you are in control of what the camera is doing.

What do these settings do?

When you are shooting in low light situations like a nightclub you want to capture as much light as you can. The club lighting is your friend, but it is also your enemy and we will cover that in a different post.

ISO
ISO is how sensitive the camera is to the light it can see. In an automatic mode, your camera will always try to get this number as low as possible. Typically in daylight the camera will aim for an ISO of 100 or lower. There is plenty of light in the day time. In a club you have very little so you need to make the camera more sensitive to it.
ISO also introduces digital noise into a picture as you go higher. Your camera will have noise reduction built-in and turned on by default so don’t worry about this right now. We will cover this later.

Shutter
This controls how long the camera takes the picture for. This is measured in seconds of time. The setting of 1/4 is one quarter of a second. This is what will give you the light trail effect you see in the example and will give you a feel of movement in the photo. When you take the photo the flash will fire and the photo will start to be taken. The camera will continue to take the photo for 1/4 of a second and then stop. As the flash fired at the beginning, it froze the subjects effectively taking the photo you wanted and then the camera continued to capture the available light.

Aperture
The aperture controls how much light the camera can see. The lower the number (less than 3.5), the brighter the image will be. The club lighting and other background lighting will be enhanced although the aperture controls two things. How bright the image is and how far the camera can see which is known as Depth of Field or DOF.  DOF will be covered in a future post

These settings are a basic starting point and should serve you well while you learn to understand how they work.

Play around, tweak each of these settings up or down one increment at a time and take some shots, see how it changes the photos and see what you like. If all goes wrong, just dial these settings back in and try again.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE PHOTOS LIKE THIS?

Then you’re in the right place to start. Whether you are holding your first DSLR camera and scratching your head or a professional established photographer, the mission is to learn and nurture new talent in this unique area of photography.

Would you like to be featured here?

If so we would like you to be featured also.
Comprising of a selection of your favorite images with full credits applied, a quick 6 question email interview, link backs to your personal web pages and lots of respect you will become a mini celebrity giving our followers a glimpse of what they can achieve if they work hard, listen and learn.

To qualify you need to prove at least 2 of these requirements. 

• You have been taking professional quality nightlife photos for at least 3 years.
• You have been published either in print or online as part of an article.
• You have a regular residency with a venue or event.
• You work full-time as a photographer regardless of nightlife photography.
• You have a note from your mother saying you are allowed to participate.

Submit your photos

Your name will be added below the gallery as a credit line. Your website will be the click-through if provided.
Feel free to add your watermarks as you require. You reserve the right to instruct me to remove your own photo at any time.
Any photos deemed inappropriate will not be included.

This is how I store and pack my batteries for a night out.

2 of the batteries are positive terminal up and 2 are down in an alternating pattern. These batteries are charged and ready to go. In this configuration its very quick to see, or if your in the dark to feel that the bundle is charged. Its also the same way that the flash’s battery compartment takes the batteries.

When I need to change, I pull out the dead batteries. Leaving the rubber band on, I place the charged set into the flash to the depth of the band then i pull the band off letting them slide in. That’s was easy.

The dead batteries I just removed get bundled back up with the rubber band I removed from the charged set but I set up the dead batteries so they are all positive terminal up. Easy to identify as dead and keep track of what sets need a charge when I return home. This only takes about 15 seconds to change a set and get shooting again.

The camera batteries are charged if they have a cap on them. I use them in number order. If I get home and have B3 & B4 in the camera I know B5 & B6 are still charged.

I hope some of you find this tip useful.

Do you have any techniques or tricks you use? Please let us know.

If like me you have a lot of batteries to care for there are a few things you can do to make life a little better for yourself and for your batteries.

Take a look at the following picture.

Yes, that is 6 sets of AA’s and 6 main camera batteries.

This gives you an idea of how I manage my batteries.

My main camera batteries are in pairs of 2. B1 & B2, B3 & B4 and B5 & B6. Each pair are the same brand and purchased as a pair. B1 & B2 are Canon originals and the rest are Energizer.

As with each bundle of AA’s, they were bought as sets of 4 and have never been mixed or split or used in other devices. I purchase new sets of AA’s every year and the retired sets go on to power the rest of my gadgets.

The reason for this is simple. Being able to track the usefulness of the batteries and to wear them out evenly. They are charged as a set, run down as a set and stored as a set.

I’m sure we’ve all done it at least once, you have a big draw full of odd batteries of all makes and types and you need 3 batteries for your child’s new toy. You sit there for quite a while swapping out the batteries one by one until you find 3 that have enough juice to work. You could have put 2 brand new batteries in, but it only takes one of the batteries to be a dud and none of it works.

By using this method in almost all of the sets I’ve had, when a set starts to shorten in operating time it’s because all 4 of the batteries are worn out.

The same applies to the camera batteries. I use a grip that takes 2 batteries at the same time. So they are used at the same time and worn out in the same manner.

Charging & Discharging

I only use NiMh (nickel-metal-hydride) batteries. They come in high capacities. I have a mix of 1300 mAh and 2700 mAh which provide me with a quicker flash recycle time when I need it.

NiMh batteries also do not suffer from the dreaded “memory effect” like their old NiCd siblings did. You can charge them at any point in their usage cycles. As with all batteries though, if you store them charged they will loose power every day they are not used. NEVER let the run completely dead. This is known as a deep discharge and will pretty much cause the battery to become unresponsive to charging.

Most modern gadgets, like a flash gun has foresight to detect the voltage levels are low and shut itself down with enough charge in the batteries to keep them in a good state.

I have 2 chargers for the AA sets. A 2 hour rapid charger and a 14 hour slow charger. The rapid charger is almost always used. Chargers of this time will stress the batteries over time with the rapid charging and the rapid discharging the flash gun is capable of. When the batteries feel like they are not holding charge as well as they have been, they get a trickle charge in the 14 hour charger.

This serves the purpose of giving the sets a complete top up which the rapid charger doesn’t do. In my understanding this is because the charger gives the batteries a run off so to say, to cool off as the heat produced during the charging can keep the batteries self charging for a short time.  The slow charge will give you a few extra cycles over the lifetime of the batteries. Think of it as giving them a service like you would on your car.

The camera batteries are charged on the original Canon battery dock and because the batteries house a microchip they will just deal with charging themselves.

Storing your batteries

As I mentioned you don’t want to store your batteries completely dead or close to being dead. They will self discharge if left and can ruin them. You could fully charge them to store them but if you don’t use them in while you could end up with them being 50% discharged when you do. As I use my batteries several times a week they are always in a good charge level state. I just top them off before i need them giving them time to cool.

Do you have any techniques or tricks you use? Please let us know.

Take a look and see if your ready to take your first steps.

Camera Body

Your most essential piece of kit and the brains of your operation.

Typically the most expensive part of your kit if you decide to purchase a sub-professional specification or higher model. A good photographer will be able to use any level of body and get the results they want. This goes to prove that it’s not how much the camera costs but the controls it gives you and the input you provide to the camera to get the shot.

Most beginners will have a consumer level model (Around £300) which are just as capable as their bigger siblings. The benefit to a beginner is that the camera is designed to make using it as easy as possible and it will do a lot of the work for you.

The typical megapixel rating on these cameras are all around 10MP. Forget all that you think you know about megapixels. Even if your new smartphone had a bigger megapixel rating than your DSLR, compare the photos and see the difference. It’s the lens in combination with a physically bigger sensor that makes the image as good as it is . This will be covered in a future article.

Lens

The lens is your eye. Treat it as you would your own eyes.

Most cameras come as a kit and include a kit lens. Typically an 18-55mm give or take a few mm. The kit lenses are very good all round  lenses and a great way to start. At the 18mm wide-angle end of the lens you will be perfectly suited for shooting in situations where people are posing for you and you have enough room to take around 4 or 5 steps back. The 50mm zoom end of the lens is good for taking closer shots of performers on stage from behind a barrier. Kit lenses are typically f3.5-5.6.  This is how much light the lens can let in. You want the lower number to be between 2.8 and 3.5 to be effective enough to use. We will cover these points in a later article.

Lenses, or you might hear them being referred to as ‘glass’, are highly precise objects. You must try your best to not bang them, get them wet, scratch them or worse. Repairing or replacing a lens will be very expensive.

Ultimately you will want to upgrade or invest in some new lenses. A popular choice is an ultra wide-angle (10-20mm) or fish-eye (6-10mm) lens. They offer the ability to get right into a crowd, up close with party goers and get the shots you want without needing to step back to frame your shot like the kit lens. Some of these lenses can focus as close as 6 inches.

Flash Gun

This bit of kit will help you see in the dark

With an off camera flash gun or strobe your pictures will be nicely lit and not just blind shots in the dark. There are three major benefits a flash gun will provide. The height of the flash head above the camera eradicates red eyes in your photos. The bigger brighter flash produced in comparison to the cameras built-in flash unit will freeze your subject in the frame and light them even in the pitch black. It will light more of the photo. It is home to your AF Assist Beam. This is the red light that is projected from the camera when you press the shutter. This works with the lens and the auto-focus in the camera to give you perfect focus even in pitch black. Your camera may have an Assist Beam built into the body, some do not, and they use the on-board flash to try to focus by letting off a small strobe burst of flashes. This should be avoided and will be explained later on in another article.

For a flagship, top spec flash gun you are going to have to part with minimum of £350 if you shop around brand new. If that sounds like bad news I can cheer you up. Jessops have their own brand flash guns which fit all major camera brands for as little as £79. You get a basic unit but you do get a LCD display, zoom & bounce head, AF Assist Beam and a built-in diffuser and reflector. Here is the link.

Flash guns use their own batteries or power packs to function. This saves you power on your camera for more shots, but you will need to carry spares.

Batteries

Keeping you going all night long.

Batteries are expensive. If you don’t look after them they wont last long either. The main battery for the camera will power your camera for hundreds of shots when used with a flash gun. Depending on how you use your camera will affect how long you can shoot for. For instance, having your screen on when you don’t need it, using the onboard flash, recording video or using the live view functions instead of the viewfinder will all drain your battery faster.

You may be tempted to purchase extra batteries on eBay for a bargain price of £10 for 2 super high mA batteries. You will learn your lesson quickly. You get what you pay for. They will last 10 minutes if they hold a charge at all and they feel very light in weight. AVOID AT ALL COST. You can damage your camera. Ideally purchase an original battery although they can start at over £50 up to £90. Almost a third of what you paid for your camera, but you are guaranteed the quality of an original. The second option is a well known third party manufacturer like Energizer or Duracell. They retail for as low as £15 on Amazon and although they don’t have as much stamina as an original, they will last hours longer than the dodgy eBay ones.

Your flashgun will also need power. I would highly recommend rechargeable. Most flash guns take 4x AA batteries. I recommend Sanyo’s eneloop cells or GP Recyclo. Both of these models are using new battery technology which keeps the batteries charged for up to a year with little loss of charge. They also come in high mA ratings which in the case of flash batteries the bigger the rating the better. I will go into detail on battery care, charging, storing and ratings in another article.

Memory Cards

Don’t leave these at home!

Bigger is not always better. Whether your camera takes SD cards or Compact flash memory, you’re going to need plenty of gigabytes of storage. The size of the image files that a DSLR can produce can be as high as MB for 1 JPEG and MB + for a RAW file depending on your megapixels. To put that in perspective, an GB card in a 15MP camera will give you 350 RAW photos . JPEG you will get about 1200-1500. No imagine the card corrupted. Would you risk losing 1500 photos you spent all weekend taking?

It is recommended that you use more, smaller capacity cards and change them as needed. That way you only lose some of the photos.

Memory is cheap now so stock up and be prepared