masochismtango

Hi, my name is Tom Godber. I'm a mobile software entrepreneur with interests in user experience design, web development and photography.

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How To Take Club Photos

// September 28th, 2009 // Photography

I’ve been taking club photos for TillLate in London for half a year now, and I tried a few times at Club Illusion in Tartu, Estonia before that.  Early on, I remember struggling to find any good tutorials – as it turns out, the basics are pretty easy to understand.

What Are You Trying To Capture?

First up, consider why you’re taking the photo – to make the club look good:

For a straight club, make sure you are prioritising the following (in order):

1. Hot chicks;
2. Famous DJs (if any);
3. People having fun (mixed groups, couples, interesting blokes);
4. Cool venue.

What Kit Do You Need?

Very little, in SLR terms:

• D-SLR camera with M(anual) mode and RAW picture format;
• External flash with E-TTL (ie. an automatic mode);
• Something to soften the flash – maybe a Stofen Omnibounce, or just a DIY bounce card.

You can in theory take club photos with a built-in flash, but you’ll look amateur and so will the photos.  Your choice!

Note that good flashes have Infrared assisted focus – they fire a red beam at the subject to work out the focus, which would take forever to find without the flash.  This is invaluable.  Make sure the focus assist works in Manual mode – for some stupid reason the cheapest Canons will let you use Manual or IR assist, but not both.  Ridiculous.

What Settings Should You Use?

Steal settings – track down club photos you like and read the EXIF data!  On Flickr, you find a “More properties” link it below the picture on the right:

To get started, all of my example pictures in this article include an overlay showing the settings.

Settings for People Photos

The first thing to realise – the flash only lights the people in the foreground. It simply isn’t powerful enough to light the room, and you don’t want it to!

If you just use the camera’s automatic P mode, it will expose for the foreground and the background will go black. To get that colour, turn to Manual mode.  Set a relatively wide apperture (f2.8 – f5.1) and a relatively long exposure (1/6 – 1/13 second) with a fast ISO (round 400-800).  Turn off any Image Stabilizer your camera or lens has, it will slow down focussing and gets confused by background movement in the longer exposure.

Your flash will freeze the foreground, whilst the longer exposure allows the background lighting to soak in and add depth.  Where possible, position the subject(s) between you and the lights so you maximise the spread of that colour.  Smoke, low ceilings, decorations and people in the background all provide surfaces to maximise that colour.

Remember to always show the photos to your subjects – always appreciated!

Settings For Crowd Shots

Don’t take every photo with the flash. You want a smattering of longer exposure pictures without a brightly lit person in the foreground – either pick up something solid like the DJ booth or just blur the crowd:

The beauty of digital is that you can just chimp away with different exposure lengths until you find something that works.  If you’re uncertain use the Info view of the photo to see the image histogram, which will tell you when you have a reasonable exposure.

Settings for Bar Pictures

Relatively long flash-less exposures can also pick out the neon often lighting bars:

Processing The Photos

Always shoot in RAW instead of JPEG – correct exposures are hard to hit when in manual mode with variable club lighting going off at random, and RAW gives you a much larger safety margin. You’ll need good processing software as well – I find Adobe Lightroom is pretty quick and easy whilst having a lot of power.

Don’t be afraid to crop out black backgrounds, and use tricks like adding Fill Light to pull out extra background colour which isn’t initially visible.

Finally, below you can see examples of my club photography improving over time – from the first shoot in Estonia to some relatively recent ones in London (the latest are here).  Practice really makes a difference – good luck!

Share and Enjoy

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15 Responses to “How To Take Club Photos”

1. Emma says:

   October 4, 2009 at 12:33 pm

   Thanks so much for such great advise, so many photographers just arnt willing to share their secrets. Very kind of you. Just wanted to ask, my friend and I are taking some pics in a nightclub for the next couple of weekends and I would like to know what lens you would recommend using. I am still using my 10d but need to invest in some decent lenses. At the moment I am taking club pics and nude’s in a studio. I dont want to buy loads of crap lenses, I would rather 1 or 2 decent, versatile ones. Can you suggest any please?
   Great photos by the way!!!
2. Tom Godber says:

   October 6, 2009 at 9:16 am

   Lenses depend a bit on budget – the 50mm f1.8 is criminally cheap for the quality, and an excellent safe bet on a budget – everyone should own one really!
   Sadly the 10D has a crop sensor but can’t take EF-S lenses – the ultimate EF-S lens is the 17-55 f2.8 IS which I used to use for 90% of my photos (of any kind) on my 20D. I now use the 24-105L f4 IS, which is again awesome, a similar price, but not quite wide enough on a crop sensor.
   If you’re not up in that budget, I have a friend who used a 19-35 Tokina on his 10D for a lot of club photos and really rated it – though I’m not sure it’s still available in shops, might have to look on eBay.
   Other than that, probably the best site for Canon lens reviews is http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/
   Good luck!
3. Emma says:

   October 9, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   Thanks so much for the advise, our first night doing club photography is tonight ( god help!). we had a practice last night and results were not impressive. Could not capture the nights atmosphere /lighting. Cheers for your help.
4. Jay says:

   October 16, 2009 at 12:57 am

   Thanks a lot for this. Great advice. I’m thinking of getting the 17-55 F2.8 but I notice that your bright neon coloured shots towards the end are taken with the 24-70L lens. Is the 17-55 able to take similar pics?
5. Javier Estrada says:

   October 18, 2009 at 1:15 am

   How should I position my flash ? I usually bounce, But I keep hearing that it wastes more battery , should I direct flash ? Thanks for the tips!!!
6. Tom Godber says:

   October 18, 2009 at 7:29 pm

   Jay: the more recent pics are with the 24-105 because I’m now shooting with a full frame 5Dmk2, which can’t handle EF-S lenses; if I still used a crop body, I’d still use the 17-55, amazing lens.

   Javier: bouncing does use more battery power, but it also produces softer more flattering light. There are a lot of ways to diffuse the light, from a bounce card to a Stofen Omnibounce (bouncing off walls is usually difficult in clubs…) – you should do it, the pictures will benefit. You can get a few hundred pictures from one set of batteries, shooting at higher ISO with a Stofen on.
7. jack move says:

   November 4, 2009 at 12:57 am

   definitely one of the best tutorials i have seen. breaks it down simple enough for a novice like me to understand. this tutorial should be published for a professional photography magazine! thanks!!!
8. Joe says:

   December 29, 2009 at 1:52 am

   Happy holidays Tom, Nicely structured tutorial for nightlife photography. A great deal of effort has been put into this mate. Never got the pleasure to meet, I’m Joe from tilllate london (projoesnaps) and was always a fan of your work, so was happy to see you sharing this little gem of info.

   I agree practice make perfect. (For anyone interested in getting into nightlife photography) Its a perfect environment to experiment with settings, techniques and develop your style. U gonna shoot anytime this new yr? else enjoy the holidays and hopefully bump into you on a social! Take care and Happy New yr!
9. Steven Davis says:

   February 14, 2010 at 6:01 am

   Thanks a lot. Are you using any gels at all, or just straight white flash?

   Also, if using a stofen, do you point at the subject directly, or bounce it somewhere? Or point up at like 45 degrees?
10. Tom Godber says:

    February 14, 2010 at 11:44 am

    Hi Steven,
    No gels at all – the club lighting is usually rotating through all sorts of unpredictable colours, and I’m looking to get the foreground people looking fairly natural with the temperature balance without caring what the background colour actually is – so the gel would be quite redundant, and eat into flash power/battery light. Though I could imagine that it could sometimes be useful, in some venues.
    The Stofen will usually move about depending on the enivronment, but in many clubs you have unpredictable walls and ceilings which aren’t any good for bouncing so I’ll tend to default to straight forward or slightly tilted up – the interesting lighting will come from the background environment, with the flash just ensuring the subjects are light enough to look ok. This will then only change if there’s a specific case for bounce that comes up.
    Hope that’s some help!
11. Tom Godber says:

    February 14, 2010 at 11:45 am

    Hi Joe,
    Thanks! I’ve had to take a break from club photos for a while as I’m swamped with other commitments, but I’m hoping to get back into it early Summer – hopefully see you then!
    Cheers, keep up the good work,
    Tom
12. Javier says:

    February 19, 2010 at 3:04 am

    Hey its me again, thanks again for this wonderful tutorial.Quick question’s

    How do you get so much ambient light with just the flash pointing straight?

    Also do you shoot in Rear Curtain Flash ?

    Do you mess with any of the flash compensation or exposure values ?

    Thanks a lot man.
13. Tom Godber says:

    February 19, 2010 at 11:26 am

    Hi Javier,
    The ambient light comes from the long exposure – you need to get some coloured lights in the background, and then leave the exposure open long enough to let it seep through. The flash is much shorter and just freezes the action in the foreground… you can test this pretty easily, start by doing a P mode photo and the background will be black, then switch to Tv mode at the same speed, and slowly dial the speed down taking more shots to see the colour appear
    I haven’t bothered to shoot Rear Curtain Flash for club photos, it hasn’t ever been neccessary here…
    The flash compensation can make a difference – I wouldn’t say I have a consistent rule, I just shift it up and down after checking how shots are coming out.
    Cheers
14. david says:

    July 26, 2010 at 1:35 am

    thanks a lot this website really helped me! I was wondering if you had any good suggestions for an E-TTL flash for an olympus SLR?
15. Tom Godber says:

    July 28, 2010 at 12:31 pm

    Hi David, glad the site is of use, I’m afraid I’ve no idea about Olympus gear but good luck searching!