Diva's Photo Guide for Pubs and Clubs.
Jun. 4th, 2006 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reddragdivaThis is a DRAFT. Please comment below with ideas, criticisms, suggestions, etc. Permanent web version.
PURPOSE: You want to get decent pics of your friends out at clubs or pubs. You may be drunk yourself. You do not know or care about 1000 pages of photo geek nerdery.
The aim here is to get usable shots straight out the camera — it's fiddling with pics afterwards that makes people never get around to putting them up.
Taking the shot After the camera What camera do I get?
(If you already have a camera, skip to "Taking the shot.")
Anything within the last two years is probably OK. Camera makers try very hard to make foolproof snapshot cameras; the default automatic settings will often be fine. Decent and cheap don't go together — you get what you pay for — but cheap cameras can usually be beaten into behaving.
Features
Something small. Bigger cameras have better optics, but you're 100% more likely to take a small camera with you everywhere. Does it fit easily in your pocket?
Good low light performance. Essential for clubbing. This is almost never covered in reviews, so you'll have to get forum opinion and so forth.
Megapixels: 3MP or more is fine. 2MP will do you fine in most cases, and a second-hand camera will be cheap! 5MP is good if you like to catch further-off detail. For 8×10"/A4 prints, 3MP is all you need (or 2MP from some). You want the sensor resolution ("effective pixels") — ignore any "interpolated" resolution.
Optical zoom: not essential, but useful. Always treat an extended lens as fragile. "Digital zoom" is completely fraudulent marketing snake oil — ignore it.
Image stabilisation: Proper optical image stabilisation, where the lens compensates for your shaky hand, is fantastic (and expensive). Anything that isn't "optical" or "mechanical" is not really IS (e.g. Casio's "Anti-shake DSP", which means "turn the ISO way up and make the shutter really fast").
Batteries: Small cameras will either use AA NiMH rechargeables or their own lithium-ion rechargeable. AAs mean a bigger camera, but you know you can get emergency batteries anywhere. Li-Ion cells mean the camera can be very tiny indeed — make sure your camera is a name brand, get spares, generic copies are about 1/3 price on eBay.
Memory cards: Card format (SD, MMC, CF, xD, Memory Stick) does not matter — all are stupidly cheap of late, e.g. a 2GB SD for £30, 512MB SD for £8, etc. Cards are not an "investment" — they should be treated like floppy disks: convenient, disposable, potential trouble, will die one day, throw them away the moment they play up.
Brands
Name brands have support forums and so forth. No-brand are cheaper, generally at least as well built and may be good or bad; check through this list (e.g. saving settings).
Canon Ixus: I recommend these; I carry an Ixus 50 with me everywhere. Tiny, and good shots basically fall out of them. If you don't want to photo-geek, get an Ixus 30/40/50/55/60/65 and you will be very happy indeed. They're pricey, but worth it. eBay has them at good prices new in box. Get a screen protector. If you don't mind second-hand and manual settings, the older line (Ixus v, v2, v3, 330, 400 — the CompactFlash models) are amazingly good optically and I get fantastic shots from them. If you have lots of cash, get the new Ixus 800 IS — the Image Stabilizer cures shaky hands.
Canon PowerShot A or S series: If you like Canon but want AA batteries. Larger and heavier than Ixus, but just as nice (or nicer) pictures. And cheaper.
Casio Exilim: these break new ground in tiny. The older ones (one or two digit model number) are rubbish in low light, the new ones are much better. (I gave the EX-S600 a tryout and it did pretty well on automatic and very nicely on manual; all the good manual settings require playing silly buggers with the "Bestshot" presets, but it's worth the effort if you don't mind geeking. It's also an amazing ultra-tiny video camera, verging on a spy camera. Nice toy.)
Fujifilm Finepix: Often bulky, but Finepix have a reputation for surviving casual pub abuse (I don't guarantee a thing). Newer models do usable ISO 800/1600/3200 — you may never need a flash at all in the pub.
Nikon Coolpix: I haven't used these, but reasonably recent ones (e.g. 6900) seem to do fine on automatic.
Panasonic Lumix: These are so not cheap (more affordable second-hand), but I am told they are unbelievably good — Leica lenses, image stabilisation, wide angle. The FX6/7 eat batteries, the FX8/9 do a lot better.
Sony CyberShot: I haven't used these, but they seem to do pretty well and the users love them.
Olympus Mju: I have had these disrecommended as being crap in low light. Pity really, they're cute otherwise.
Konica Minolta: have stopped making cameras, which is a pity. Cheap right now as model-end runouts. The Dimage X-something series do well for clubbing, I'm told.
Where to buy it
If you buy new, you want your warranty to be honoured. Decent online shops in the same country are good for new with warranty at a good price. High street shops are going down to online prices these days. "Refurbished with warranty" are cheaper and usually as good. Pick your shop carefully and read the fine print.
(Online shoppers in the UK: Shopping.com is good for comparisons; Amazon is very easy to arrange delivery with; bundle deals are rarely cost effective.)
If you're not sure what you want, check for a good returns policy so you can change your mind. (High street shops are good for this and can be well worth the extra cost.)
eBay can be very good for second-hand (or even new or refurbished) if your eBay skills are sharp and you know what you're after.
Extra accessories
Spare batteries are essential. A spare battery charger (and/or a car charger) is useful if the camera didn't come with one.
Most cameras, when you plug them into your computer, will show up as an external disk (and with Windows XP, MacOS X or recent Linux, the computer will treat them that way even if the camera wouldn't normally). If yours doesn't do this, a USB card reader (£10-20) may be useful — the software with most cameras is rubbish.
Taking the shot
If you already have a camera that fails the stuff above, don't worry — there's lots you can do to get good shots anyway.
Tips for good shots
These are mostly a matter of opinion. Use common sense. Look at online galleries and see what you think sucks.
The camera:
- Frame the shot properly in the LCD if possible — it saves time editing afterwards.
- Take spare batteries. Most cameras advise "save battery by not using the LCD or flash," but you need both for clubbing (everyone wants to look at the pic you just took of them).
- Take multiple shots — it's a digital, shots are free. Most cameras have a continuous shooting mode: hold the button and get several shots quickly — do this with high ISO and no flash and you can get good results.
- Take a spare memory card.
Flash:
- Edit out the red-eye! Red-eye-reducing flash doesn't work well in my experience — blinds the subject twice and you still get red eye.
- You can't use flash in smoke (try it and see!) — set the camera fast and brighten the shot later. If you must use flash, turn saturation/vividness down.
- You can't take a good shot of someone several metres away if there's anyone or anything between you and them.
- Flash doesn't work with bands (and it may be considered rude).
- With optical zoom, you can get a great head-and-shoulders shot by zooming in then standing back. Less red-eye too.
People:
- Don't just photograph people's face and shoulders, get a full-length shot as well — their outfit will have been planned from top to toe.
- Black clothes on a black background won't come out well!
- The rule of thirds is a good guideline for composition that doesn't suck. Not that I ever use it.
- You don't have to put up every shot.
- Sort out permission from club and subjects sensibly. Ask first. Upsetting people is bad.
Auto settings
Digitals these days try very hard to be good snapshot cameras in all conditions. Try it on default automatic first. The results will likely be quite OK.
Manual settings
(This bit gets technical.)
Every camera lets you fiddle with stuff. It's worth a try. Even a camera that's crappy on automatic can do much better set properly.
In manual mode, an ultracompact will typically let you set ISO (how fast the sensor is), white balance (to make colours look right in whatever light you're in) and EV ("exposure value", total brightness of the picture). Most don't let you set shutter speed (how long it's open for) or aperture (how wide it's open).
- Daylight: ISO 50, "daylight" or "cloudy" white balance.
- Indoors: ISO 400/800, "tungsten" ("lightbulb") or "fluorescent" white balance. If you have daylight-spectrum fluoros, use "cloudy". Hold really still.
- Flash photos: ISO 50, "cloudy" white balance.
- Non-flash photos in dark places: ISO 400/800, "tungsten" white balance. Hold REALLY still.
- Live bands: as for non-flash in dark places. Take lots of shots to throw away. Flash is a bad idea and possibly rude.
Set the EV to -1/3. (This makes the pic just a little darker — so close flash won't wash out, and no-flash will be a little less blurry.)
There's likely to be a "saturation" control somewhere (or "vividness" or something). Try turning it down and see if it makes the shots better.
If all your shots are coming out weirdly blue-tinged or yellow-tinged, the white balance is probably wrong. (A lot of cheap cameras have this problem.) Try another setting.
Brands and remembering settings
- Canon: Remembers settings when switched off. The annoying part is switching between settings in one click rather than three.
- Casio: You can only get it to remember settings by programming them in as a preset ("user Bestshot"), but then switching settings is really easy. The manual will take you through the tedious procedure.
- Fujifilm: Remembers settings when switched off. Switching between settings is annoying on some older models.
- Other cameras: If your camera doesn't remember settings when switched off, or can't be convinced to at all ever, you want a different one. (I got caught by a Premier DC-5085, a cheap Chinese no-brand, which was not bad otherwise.) Read the manual again first though.
After the camera
Memory cards are out to get you. Dump your photos to computer the day you take them. And get a CD or DVD burner and burn backups of your original shots regularly.
Ideally, you want to be able to take the pictures (the fun part) and have them come out the camera needing only to be resized for the web, because editing and cropping is boring.
In practice, you'll have things like red-eye (every compact gets this, from having the flash too near the lens), dust circles (another flash effect), people who don't want to be in the shot when there's someone you do want in the shot, etc.
Photo editors
- Photoshop: is the gold standard. It also costs a fortune, but a cut-down version is often free with scanners and printers. Photoshop Elements has useful stuff for amateur photographers. (Windows, Mac)
- The GIMP: is free (www.gimp.org) and does most things you could want to do to photos for the web. I strongly recommend it. Takes some learning. (Windows, Mac, Unix)
PictureWindow Pro: I haven't used this, I've had it recommended. Picture editing specifically aimed at photographers. (Windows) PaintShop Pro: is cheap and reputedly better for beginners than the GIMP. (Windows only) uLead Photo Express: I don't like it, others do. Frequently free with the camera. (Windows only) Picasa: The editing interface is perfect for the amateur photographer. The red eye repair in particular is fantastically usable. (Windows, Linux) Processing batches of shots
You have shots from your night out that you'd like to put up — a hundred five-megapixel images that are 2 megabytes each, and that's way too much for your webspace and no-one's going to look at the shots in full resolution anyway. You can either shrink them all one at a time in a photo editor ... or get the computer to do it for you.
- Picasa: I use this myself and do the occasional complicated stuff in the Gimp. Good browsing interface, excellent editor. Don't use it to actually download the pics from your camera — it doesn't preserve the Exif data. (Windows, Linux)
- iPhoto: It's Apple, it does everything for you, in its own way. Good for non-pros; keep the GIMP to hand as well. (Mac)
- digiKam: Does everything you need, easy to pick up as you go. Look under Tools->Batch Processes. (KDE on Unix/Linux)
- gtKam and gThumb: gtKam to get the shots from the camera, gThumb to process batches, rename, etc. Quite usable. (GNOME on Unix/Linux)
- Photoshop and PictureWindow Pro are also good for processing batches of files.
For Windows, your camera will likely come with some software ... probably of terrible quality.
I wrote a pile of scripts/batch files for my computer to do most things I want using netpbm and ImageMagick, but I'm like that.
Where to put your photos up
Googling on "free photo hosting" produces a zillion hits. I know about the following:
- Fotopic.net — I use them. 250MB free, you can buy more. Ridiculously easy to use.
- Flickr — more oriented to photoblogging, though many people use it as a gallery. Free users get 20MB/month and the last 200 shots visible in the photo stream.
- LiveJournal, GreatestJournal, etc. — the LiveJournal engine includes photo hosting, mainly for those with a blog on the site. I don't like the software, others do.
- Photobucket — free users get 1GB but can only upload via web form, email or a Windows program.
Hosting on your own site — if you have your own website and don't mind computer geeking, the control is unparalleled. You can get programs to generate all the gallery HTML for you to upload (see above), or you can run gallery software on the site itself — your web host likely offers it as a feature. On reddragdiva.co.uk, I run Coppermine; the most popular one is Gallery; there are others. Be prepared to have to hack stuff around yourself to customise it your way.
Is there any way to make this shorter? Cheers to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
roxy_lou for inspiration.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-04 09:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-06 11:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-06 11:45 pm (UTC)Gross Generalisation Opportunity
Date: 2006-06-06 11:53 pm (UTC)Don't get me started on cameraphones. Though in the next 2 years the market will fall out of low-end compacts as phones will be good enough.
Re: Gross Generalisation Opportunity
Date: 2006-06-09 12:35 pm (UTC)Re: Gross Generalisation Opportunity
Date: 2006-06-09 12:36 pm (UTC)I'd use my phone for that though...
Re: Gross Generalisation Opportunity
Date: 2006-06-09 12:43 pm (UTC)People are going to use what they have. Just because you wouldn't be satisfied with the shots doesn't mean people aren't going to try anyway with what they do have, and it certainly doesn't mean they'll listen when you tell them they should move up a couple of levels of equipment or not bother.
Re: Gross Generalisation Opportunity
Date: 2006-06-09 12:59 pm (UTC)It's also unfair to assume results from ISO 800 will be even remotely comparable across different cameras as sensor characteristics, interference, glass quality and so on all come into it. ISO is simply a measure of sensitivity to light in this context surely?
I'm being slightly provacative I agree but surely there's an element of realism involved?
In any guide you have to keep a balance between helping people make the best decisions and deal with the results of the decisions they have made. I'm doing more of the former than the latter but I make no claims otherwise.
Plus I'm possibly really irritated by having spent a weekend tripping over people with compacts...
Re: Gross Generalisation Opportunity
Date: 2006-06-09 01:24 pm (UTC)"Plus I'm possibly really irritated by having spent a weekend tripping over people with compacts..."
That is, of course, entirely understandable.
Re: Gross Generalisation Opportunity
Date: 2006-06-09 01:28 pm (UTC)But I do agree you're basically right — for capturing a stage show, you won't get really good results without a bigger light bucket on the front of your camera. OTOH, I for example am not at all concerned about a shot being dark and noisy if interesting shapes and poses can be extracted from it.