Every day is a school day

[Benny Smyth]

I've always been the kind of person who is more interested in the process than the finished result. I've always been very curious on how something gets to where it is. So, for example, when I started to DMX my light show, it was less to do with the fact that 'it looks cool' and more to do with 'how the hell did you do that?'

Last September, whilst sitting in Birmingham Airport opposite Curry's I thought to myself 'Stuff it' and I went in and bought myself a DSLR camera. It's the Canon 70D with a 15-38mm lens, and it's very much aimed at the 'you fancy a go at photography, but don't know what you're doing yet' crowd. I've toyed a bit with it over the months but in the last few weeks, I decided to really delve into what I can do with this kit so I switched off auto mode and started using manual mode. It's here that the tears start to flow, and I really start to get an appreciation of how much work photographers need to do to get those amazing pics.

A friend of mine got married last week, and I say this in the nicest way possible but it was done on the cheap so I asked him if he had a photographer. He told me that his bride-to-be's ex husband has bought a new camera so he'll be taking pics. I was actually quite happy with that. I can take my camera and have a bit of practice with a few candid shots here and there but, more importantly, there's a chap there who knows what he's doing, will get th eimportant shots in excellent quality and - just maybe - I can annoy him with some questions. ;)

What is assumption the mother of again?

I asked my friend if he minded if I bought my camera, and he said go for it. I borrowed a flash from a friend so I can practice bouncing the light around and what not, so I turned up looking forward to partying, and practicing. Ex husband's new camera? It was just a digital camera. A digital camera that ran out of battery power at the cake cutting.

But oh look, Benny has a camera! He can take the pics for the rest of the evening! :bang: Well, I guess being chucked in the deep end is as good a way to learn as any, I suppose...

On the night, I took 473 photos. After a massive cull last night, I've wittled them down to 146 that I am willing to edit and give to the happy couple, of which I think maybe a handful can be considered 'good' (although those were purely down to luck over skill). Back home, I've purchased Adobe Creative Cloud (which consists of Lightroom and Photoshop) at what I think is a very reasonable £8.57 a month. Now I am spending a lot of time editing these pics (I hope to finish them off tonight) whilst watching lots and lots of videos on YouTube on how to use Lightroom.

Anyway, after the ramble, the point of this thread is to ask whether you actively look to teach yourself a new skill be it within our role as DJ's, or something completely different. Is it something that you may use to earn money once you hang up the headphones?

[ukpartydj]

Anyway, after the ramble, the point of this thread is to ask whether you actively look to teach yourself a new skill be it within our role as DJ's, or something completely different. Is it something that you may use to earn money once you hang up the headphones?

I think I've got the same issue that you have - I must always be learning something, I've discovered I'm an absolute nutcase for learning some things and when I say nutcase I mean absolutely obsessive!

I've just bought all the components for a home cinema and I think I must have spent 3 solid weeks of researching and learning about speaker designs, amplifier reviews, ideal positioning and something I find fascinating - Psychoacoustics.

Friends and family are constantly saying "do you have google everything you don't know??" haha :) the answer of course is... yes!

[Shaun]

Anyway, after the ramble, the point of this thread is to ask whether you actively look to teach yourself a new skill be it within our role as DJ's, or something completely different. Is it something that you may use to earn money once you hang up the headphones?

In the past I've had a nice sideline business doing graphic design (logos, brochures, banners etc). I got a bit burnt out doing that though as it took up a lot of time. There's always the option to head back down that route.

[Andy P]

I just love learning full stop - my main issue with photography and I went the Nikon route is good shots in the dark when motion is involved - as you can guess Im referring to the dance floor. I just cant seem to get good shots and Ive looked at loads of guides.

[rth_discos]

I think there must be a connection with mobile DJs and wanting to learn new things, and learn how things work.

Otherwise, what else would have made us want to learn how to build a mobile sound and light system!

[Daryll]

I went the Nikon route

:like::like:

Daryll

[Pe7e]

I went the Nikon route is good shots in the dark when motion is involved - as you can guess Im referring to the dance floor. I just cant seem to get good shots and Ive looked at loads of guides.

It's a question of juggling your settings for optimal results #1 a fast lens will perform better in low light conditions, the lower the f number the faster the lens if you have a 'slow lens' you're pretty much stuiffed for decent low light shots . #2 f stop the more light you let in the brighter the picture, BUT the lower the depth of focus you will get. #3 shutter speed, the faster the shutter speed the less motion blur you will get but the pics will be darker. #4 film speed/camera sensitivity usually measured as an ISO or ASA number the higher the number the faster the film and it's performance in the dark, but the contrast will suffer and the graininess will increase. #5 Flash, turn it off to avoid washing out the coloured disco lighting
I would you increase the ISO setting on your camera maybe to 600, set your camera to automatic and take some pictures at one of your gigs (making a note of the other settings the cameras auto mode had selected) and then experiment / play with the settings around them until you find the ultimate settings. Since you have a Nikon, you mat well have the ability to set the camera to automatically 'bracket' the exposure/f stop settings, check the manual.

Finally it's amazing what you can rescue in Photoshop if you can use it properly.

[rth_discos]

I just love learning full stop - my main issue with photography and I went the Nikon route is good shots in the dark when motion is involved - as you can guess Im referring to the dance floor. I just cant seem to get good shots and Ive looked at loads of guides.

If you're performing at a wedding, and the photographer is there in the evening, have a chat with them.

It was at a gig that a photographer helped me out with getting the settings right for catching images in a tough location.

Also, if you have a zoom lens, try and keep the zoom in the "middle" - that also helps let more light in.

As mentioned above, get a good lens (I have a great 50mm lens that is great for letting in light), increase your ISO (it's a balance between how sharp the image is and how much noise there is), and a lower f stop (but keep in mind it's a very shallow depth of field).

Also, ensure you are shooting in RAW format. You'd be amazed how much detail you can get out of a RAW image that you think is underexposed (in fact I shoot underexposed on purpose, as you can't rescue an overexposed image). But you'll need the right software to work with RAW, like Photoshop.

[Andy P]

Thanks guys - I'll have a mess around and check what lenses I have - I only have 3 currently and 1 came with the camera

[Benny Smyth]

I'm in no way an expert photographer, but here is what my understanding is:

Shutter speed: the slower your shutter speed is, the more light you let into your camera however, because your shutter remains open for longer, it is prone to blurring as you'll be moving (slight wobble, or even when you're breathing). The longer your shutter speed, the more chance there is for stuff to move and blur your image. You could counteract this by using a flash as, for reasons I don't understand, whatever the flash hits, it seems to freeze (so if you were taking a picture of a bride dancing, she would freeze in the image but everything else would blur). Using the on-camera flash is generally considered a no-no as it will be too bright and will wash out your images. Either use a diffuser to sit on that flash, or buy an external flash gun and use it to bounce the light around (I would recommend the latter). A faster shutter speed will mean less blurring, but less light will enter the camera, thus meaning darker images. Or get a tripod. That'll stop the movement of the camera, but would do very little of anything else moving.

Aperture: The lower the aperture, the more light that gets into the camera but it will have a very narrow depth of field (foreground clear, background fuzzy). This can be a very cool image but may not be something you want to do all the time. To counteract that, you would increase your aperture which would allow more things into focus, but that would let in less light.

ISO: For all intensive purposes, this is a last resort. The higher the ISO, the more 'noise' you introduce to the image. Mess about with shutter speed and aperture first to try and get the right balance and only use ISO if you cannot get the levels of light that you need.

RAW vs. JPG: Shooting in JPG means that the image is processed in the camera, so it will come out more colourful than a RAW image but you leave it up to your camera to decide what the image should look like. In RAW, it does shoot rather bland, but there is a lot more 'information' in that image that you can edit and increase individual colours, saturation, highlights, shadows etc. If you shoot in RAW, you will obviously need an editing programme and I think getting Lightroom and Photoshop for less than a tenner a month is very reasonable. For my friend's wedding, I just used Lightroom and it is pretty amazing what you can do (just finished the last of the images tonight and sent them the link to download them - fingers crossed they like them).

All the images that I did take was with the standard kit lens and one thing I did notice was that I need to get a much better one (workman blaming his tools).

[DJ Jules]

You could counteract this by using a flash as, for reasons I don't understand, whatever the flash hits, it seems to freeze (so if you were taking a picture of a bride dancing, she would freeze in the image but everything else would blur).

It's because the flash is far brighter than anything else in the image, but last for a very very short period of time (much shorter than even the fastest shutter speed you could set. For example, if you're taking a photo where you've composed the scene with a subject 3m away and the background of the scene 10 or 15m away, then you'll find that most of the flash light will have dissipated before it hits the objects in the background. This means that the foreground of the scene will be lit by the flash and the background will be lit by ambient light. The flash is a very brief event so you'll get a very sharp image with no movement, the ambient light will reach the camera for the whole time the shutter is open so you'll see a composite picture including any movement. Hopefully that makes sense, I'm sure there's other guides that explain it better :D Basically though, if you set the camera to manual and use a relatively small aperture, low ISO, longer exposure time and a flash you'll find that your foreground objects (dancers) are well lit and sharp and the background will show movement and blur. If you don't balance off the aperture/ISO against exposure correctly though, the ambient light hitting the foreground objects will also come through and you'll start seeing motion blur on foreground objects too. It takes a lot of playing to get this right. Or a very big Flash gun.


RAW vs. JPG: Shooting in JPG means that the image is processed in the camera, so it will come out more colourful than a RAW image but you leave it up to your camera to decide what the image should look like. In RAW, it does shoot rather bland, but there is a lot more 'information' in that image that you can edit and increase individual colours, saturation, highlights, shadows etc.

RAW is essentially exactly what the camera sensor sees, with JPG the camera applies a filter to try and balance the colours and then compresses the image (losing some information in the process). The important thing is that with RAW, you can apply the processing afterwards and recover the image if you make the wrong choice. If the camera makes the wrong call with the processing when you shoot as a JPG, then you're stuffed.


If you shoot in RAW, you will obviously need an editing programme and I think getting Lightroom and Photoshop for less than a tenner a month is very reasonable.

I'm going to have look at that.... I bought lightroom with my camera for £65 via a PCWorld offer, but Photoshop was well out of my price range - a tenner a month makes a lot of sense though.


All the images that I did take was with the standard kit lens and one thing I did notice was that I need to get a much better one (workman blaming his tools).

I picked up a Sigma lens for £120 - it's heavy, but it has a wider range of focal lengths and can achieve a slightly wider aperture.

Julian

[Benny Smyth]

It's because the flash is far brighter than anything else in the image, but last for a very very short period of time (much shorter than even the fastest shutter speed you could set. For example, if you're taking a photo where you've composed the scene with a subject 3m away and the background of the scene 10 or 15m away, then you'll find that most of the flash light will have dissipated before it hits the objects in the background. This means that the foreground of the scene will be lit by the flash and the background will be lit by ambient light. The flash is a very brief event so you'll get a very sharp image with no movement, the ambient light will reach the camera for the whole time the shutter is open so you'll see a composite picture including any movement. Hopefully that makes sense, I'm sure there's other guides that explain it better :D Basically though, if you set the camera to manual and use a relatively small aperture, low ISO, longer exposure time and a flash you'll find that your foreground objects (dancers) are well lit and sharp and the background will show movement and blur. If you don't balance off the aperture/ISO against exposure correctly though, the ambient light hitting the foreground objects will also come through and you'll start seeing motion blur on foreground objects too. It takes a lot of playing to get this right. Or a very big Flash gun.

Boom. Julian proving more useful than I with regards to flashes. :beer1:

As for the Photoshop and Lightroom combo, clicky here for the Creative Cloud (https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/photography.html).

[Benny Smyth]

Would anyone mind if I posted some of the images I took? See what you all think? I am fully prepared for you all to scream the words "That looks shot!"*




*typo

[DJ Jules]

Would anyone mind if I posted some of the images I took? See what you all think? I am fully prepared for you all to scream the words "That looks shot!"*

Please do :D

[Andy P]

For the cheap skates amongst us Picasa is quite a good photo editing tool and whilst not as powerful as the aforementioned adobe products its user friendly and more importantly free...

My biggest issue is probably understanding flash setting and getting the direction and diffusion correct. In light Ive taken some great shots but will have a mess around in the dark over the next few events.

[DJ Jules]

My biggest issue is probably understanding flash setting and getting the direction and diffusion correct. In light Ive taken some great shots but will have a mess around in the dark over the next few events.

Getting those dark shots of people dancing right has been the hardest thing. I've been practising for a year and I tend to either get lots of blur, or I use flash and I lose all of the ambience from the lighting effects in the room.

Getting really good dancing shots that actually capture the ambience is really, really hard. I do the odd walk in gig at a local club and the owner has been more than happy for me to go along after I finish some the mobile gigs and take photos of the punters. It's been a good opportunity to get some practice in and he gets shots to use for promoting the place. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone who really wants to get good at this as clubs tend to be extremely challenging environments to get good photos. E.g. Very low light, low ceilings, lots of "features" you don't want to include (like damp ceilings, peeling paint, etc) and lots of movement and odd ambient light due to laser effects, strobes, etc.

[Benny Smyth]

Please do :D

http://i58.tinypic.com/15cbwbl.jpg http://i62.tinypic.com/68g38h.jpg

http://i62.tinypic.com/2qv9wf7.jpg http://i58.tinypic.com/11ka5qg.jpg

http://i61.tinypic.com/21i5h.jpg http://i58.tinypic.com/28qufjr.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/2zempe1.jpg http://i59.tinypic.com/2el6mmr.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/359wz2p.jpg http://i62.tinypic.com/szic9k.jpg

http://i58.tinypic.com/2up4scy.jpg

I think that'll do for now. :daft:

[Benny Smyth]

My biggest issue is probably understanding flash setting and getting the direction and diffusion correct. In light Ive taken some great shots but will have a mess around in the dark over the next few events.

Photography is like a lot of things - there is the scientific process on how to do something but that will take you probably 10% of the way. The rest is subjective. It's such a cop out answer to give, but from what I can tell it is true - grab your camera and get snapping and changing settings until you hit something you like. Once you're there, keep trying to perfect that. :beer1:

[Andy P]

I like the one of the dude in the white shirt - good for demonstrating enjoyment

[Pe7e]

I think your biggest problem is under exposure and framing of the shots, there are a lot of 'unfortunate' background details that take away attention from the intended subject, but a bit of cropping and colour enhancement in Photoshop or similar programs can deliver improvements. I took the liberty of playing with a couple of your shots to illustrate, these took just 15 mins, with a bit more time and care, far better results are possible (especially if you have the unprocessed camera images)
I forgot to add, these images were done with GIMP which is FREE

17242

17243

17244

[Benny Smyth]

I think your biggest problem is under exposure and framing of the shots

Thinking about it, the brightness on my laptop monitor is set to max, so that'll explain the exposure.

That's a pretty basic thing to mess up... :daft:

[rth_discos]

Ithere are a lot of 'unfortunate' background details that take away attention from the intended subject,

I would definitely make the focal length much shorter. That will blur out the background, and have the benefit that your aperture will more open - therefore will let more light in.

The trick is to not rely on the flash - it can look quite harsh. Without the flash you'll get much nicer colours.