HELP! Need avice shooting street night life...

[Raist3d]

Anybody has experience taking street night life shots? I would appreciate any tips.. I went the other night to start this homework and I felt like unless I shoot paparazzi style from really far, or dare to talk to a group of people to pose.. it's hard.... hard..

Any anecdotes/suggestions? I would apreciate them a lot! thanks!

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by th0t

Hi Raist3d,

Unless you have a way to conceal a fast camera, there are probably only two good choices:

• Use a super telephoto lens with a wide aperture and shoot from a distance so you won't be noticed by your subjects.
• Develop a relationship with the people in the section of town where you plan to shoot. This will require a serious commitment in your time and a genuine desire get to know the regulars that inhabit that part of town. Once they trust you, and you've honestly explained what you want to do, they will probably allow you to shoot candids without disruption.

Since you posted this message in the Olympus Digital SLR forum, I assume that you have an E-1 or E-300. If this is the case, then I recommend using a Zuiko Digital 150mm f2.0 lens. It has the same FA as a 300mm lens on a 35mm film camera yet it is still small enough to shoot by hand.

Yes, I have an evolt e -300. Man the 150mm is nice but I only have the macro, the 14-54 and the 50-200.. :-(

Anyway, it seems from the feedback I am getting everywhere I kind of knew what I had to do, but I need to dare to do it. I like your idea about developing a relationship with the people of that area.

I guess for now the 50-200 will have to do.

- Raist

[bavanor]

You don't need to use your 50-200mm. Just slap your 14-54mm, set it at 14mm, leave the camera on, set with autofocus, get your light metering set ahead of time or shoot with aperature priority set at about f9 or f11 and walk around with the camera held in one hand at your waist (as you would regularly walk). Then just start snapping pictures at that vantage point while walking downtown.

You can get some pretty cool shots that way.

Aaron

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by th0t

Hi Raist,

My concern with the ZD 50-200mm lens is that, if you use it at the long end, your biggest aperture will be only f3.5 which may not allow you to use a fast enough shutter speed to catch street action at night without blurrring. You'll just have to experiment and see what works.

By the way, I noticed that you double-posted the same message in different Photo Camel forums. Next time, please post your question in just one forum.

Th0t - yeah I know what you mean on the 3.5 aperture. I actually captured some things tonight and the main difficulty for me seems that for the shots I want, I would like to have willing models. As for the double post I did so because I wanted to get advice specific to the Olympus and advice from any photographer in general, but I'll take your suggestion.

Thanks for all the tips. I may upload a couple of the shots I took tonight (which I think 95% of them are not great, really).

- Raist

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by bavanor

You don't need to use your 50-200mm. Just slap your 14-54mm, set it at 14mm, leave the camera on, set with autofocus, get your light metering set ahead of time or shoot with aperature priority set at about f9 or f11 and walk around with the camera held in one hand at your waist (as you would regularly walk). Then just start snapping pictures at that vantage point while walking downtown.

You can get some pretty cool shots that way.

Aaron

Aaron, thanks for the idea.. I sure could try that.

- Raist

[Raist3d]

I am going to follow Th0t's recommendation by hijacking the thread and I will continue following up with the subject in the Camera General Talk forum. Thanks.

- Raist

[nsurit]

Good question. Lets see . . . how about Tri-X pushed two stops and a 24mm f2.8 shot like a point and shoot using hyperfocal length focusing. Oh, heck I forgot this is the digital forum. If I didn't really feel comfortable with the area, I probably wouldn't be shooting at night with any camera. At the higher ISO setting I get noise. I also see the same when doing long exposures. What you are proposing doesn't play to the e-1 or e-300s long suit. I'll be interested to see the solutions generated on this forum. Bill Barber

[Paul Shields]

Night time with the E-x series is going to introduce a lot of noise unless you have some well-lit street scenes. I think Raist3d's shots look quite clean for an E-300 (in fact they look quite 'filmy' to me in their B&W conversion). You can see the shots he's talking about here (look for the Street Life posts).

[nsurit]

Very nice work and I don't see any noise. Bill Barber

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by nsurit

Very nice work and I don't see any noise. Bill Barber

Thanks for the comments!

- Raist

[Paul Shields]

Nice to see you back Raist - any more street life sessions coming up? I've always enjoyed seeing them.

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by Paul

Nice to see you back Raist - any more street life sessions coming up? I've always enjoyed seeing them.

Maybe though that was a particular homework. But I have a new heat homework, a rocket launch I captured and some other goodies coming up. I think I already posted the rocket launch here.

- Raist

PS: This is probably a private matter, but what happened to Z0t and Pavel? I miss them....