Editorial - Equipment and Lighting

Tokina 11-16

Its something I never really covered last time. For one it wasn't that much different from shooting during the day apart from a flash was almost always used ...

 and secondly, as I never really had much of an understanding as how to best explain to someone else how and why choices were made or what differences it makes to the final image.

I use..

Nikon D7100 cropped sensor DSLR

Nikon SB 700 flash with/without diffuser

Nikon SB 910 flash with/without diffuser

And thats it really.. I dont need triggers as they all work together on a system that uses the pop up flash as a commander if you want to use them off camera.The only draw back is this can sometimes fail if its not in direct line of sight. The other way is to use the 910 as a main and the 700 as a slave which is activated off the master just being used as normal.

Both have AF assist which fires an infra red cross hair that works brilliantly in the dark for focusing. Before i used this I was using the fashion lamp on the camera which in smokey rooms tended the catch the closest thing to you and fix on that..usually not what you wanted and  a cloud of smake machine haze.

The 910 can be operated with just the AF only which again is really handy for doing low light shots when your not wanting the flash to fire.

I try to experiment as much as i can to mix things up from direct,bouncing,off camera and just switch between them as I wonder around. TTL mode can be used on both and although it can help in changing light situations its not great for getting candid shots as it fires a pre flash to check the lighting levels. This when done with a 1 second exposure on a rear curtain setting makes it seem to the subject you have already taken a shot and you get a reaction in that time mostly whether you want it or not.



 The camera produces raw files that I then process using Lightroom. I have a set of presets that i have customised and continue to change as I learn more about how I feel the images should look. They all have a high level of adjustment but a similar look and feel. Hue saturation,tone curve,split toning,lens correction and some noise reduction/masking depending on the time of day/night.
White balance is corrected on each image individually to suit. I have tried to do this in batches but there doesnt seem to be a way with such variation in lighting setups at different venues. Even in the same venue at any given time 20 different sets of lights can be on and coming at you from a different angle.

I have 3 lens that I use with the D7100

Sigma 24-70

Sigma 85

Tokina 11-16

These cover anything I would need in the clubs,mostly using the sigma 24-70 and the Tokina equally and occasionally the sigma 85. The obvious advantage of the 11-16 tokina is the extra bodies you can get in but it does have an almost fish eye distortion being such a wide lens. Also people tend to feel less comfortable when you are practically sat on top of them. Its also quite brutally un flattering for women to see their facial hair in such detail. Ask me sometime to show you the image i took in the summer of my ex wife at an event.