Aisha, the belly-dancer .. « Neil vN

Aisha was the star at a recent party where she performed as a belly-dancer. Through several dance routines, I had the luxury of having enough time to move from just the safe shots, to playing around and getting more diverse images …

The ‘safe shots’ would be where I used flash to light her up, and help freeze action somewhat. This would give representative photos, while still retaining most of the ambiance:

Switching the flash off, or just turning the power down .. and concentrating more on the ambient light, gave me much more interesting images. Of course not every image worked now, but I was pleased with the wider range of images. I felt they were more intriguing, like the opening image at the top.

Without flash, it was a little tougher, with focusing not being as sure in the dark, and excessive subject movement spoiling some images … but for some, the movement added to the mood ..

[ 1/1ooth @ f2.8 @ 25oo ISO ]

equipment:
Nikon D3; Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 AF-S or Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S VR; SB-900 at times.

settings:
all at 1600 ISO, except as noted for the 3rd image at the top.
apertures f3.2 – f2.8 // shutter speeds ranged from 1/30th to 1/100th

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14 Comments »

The photos are amazing and so is she!
I found the backlit photos more interesting and the flare and ghosts in my opinion adds more drama to the image and accentuates her figure.
I have tried dance photos in similar lighting condition, but my 20D and 24-70 F2.8 L does not always lock focus confidently in similar lighting condition. My approach has been to use rear curtain flash sync…flash bounced behind me , f2.8,ISO1600 and shutter about 1/10 to 1/15 and center focus point but still i have to shoot a substantial number of shots to get one well focused. Is that normal or i still need a lot of practice?
Maybe 1 series camera would solve it but thats an expensive solution for a student. :) But would it ?

Comment by Ujwal Bhattarai — April 2, 2009 @ 5:25 am
Ujwal .. it took me a number of images to get those that worked. With so much subject movement .. and she can move! .. I’d say about half the images where useless.

This is one area where digital has come to the rescue. You really can play until you get what you want.

Strangely enough, in my experience, the 1 series cameras before the 1D mk3, didn’t focus as well in low light as the 20D / 30D / 5D series of cameras. Incredible as it may seem, but the 5D focused better in low light than the mk2N.

So before investing in a 1-series body for improved AF, just do some homework on that.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 2, 2009 @ 6:37 am
Neil,
can you tell us how many flashes you use and what is your flash placement?

thanks

Comment by Tim Wong — April 2, 2009 @ 7:44 am
Tim, since this was a small venue with low ceilings, and quite full, I didn’t have to use additional lighting. So all the flash I used was my on-camera speedlight, with The Black Foamie Thing ™

Dead simple. : )

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 2, 2009 @ 10:01 am
Nice photography there, Neil. The lighting condition this dancer was in is somewhat similar to what I was trying to do for stage photography for a convention (low ambient light, spots of light that changed in intensity). Unfortunately, my D300 could go past ISO 1600 without a lot of noise being introduced, and no flash was permitted in that instance. Or my technique was just really bad.

By the way, the second photo from the top (the safe shot) doesn’t seem to have your watermark on it.

Comment by Stephen — April 2, 2009 @ 1:17 pm
Stephen, yup, stage lighting is tough. You’re stuck with what you have. In this case, I purposely shot against the DJ’s light, knowing it would flare like that, or at least give me rim lighting when I use flash.

Thanks for the heads-up, I fixed the image now.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 2, 2009 @ 4:16 pm
Hi Neil,

I really had no idead that 20D/5D etc were in low light AF better than 1 series before MkIII. Thanks! that saved me lots of money.

By the way, I think I may have made an improvement on your “Black Foamie thing”. I now use velcro sticker on the foam to attach it just like sleeve button on shirts. And its easier and quicker to mount it on flash this way. I used to used the rubber band, but this is better and more secure (and looks better too )

Ujwal.

Comment by Ujwal Bhattarai — April 2, 2009 @ 5:40 pm
Hi! Neil,

With light from so many different sources (bounce flash, room light, DJ lights) do you have any suggestion on how to do White Balance for a sequence of shots like this.

Thanks,
Vikram

Comment by Vikram — April 2, 2009 @ 5:55 pm
raw raw raw raw raw!

JPG simply isn’t an option here.

When I started shooting that evening, I had a 1/2 CTS filter on my speedlight, and therefore had my camera’s WB set to 3700K. That’s where I kept it even with the flash off. That spotlight was blue, so I warmed up the available-light images considerably from my original WB of 3700K.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — April 2, 2009 @ 6:23 pm
Hi! Neil,

” raw raw raw raw raw! ”

Completely agree. I can’t even imagine the pain of having to color correct jpegs for a scene like this.

Thanks for your response and for this fantastic blog. IMO “planetneil” has become “the place” for anyone wanting to understand flash photography. Keep up the good work! Wish you the best for the release of your book as well. Can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

Thanks,
Vikram

Comment by Vikram — April 2, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
Hello Neil,

Good day. Hope this finds you well.

I am getting back into photography after 20 years. I didn’t realize flash photography could look so beautiful and natural until I found your website so I am trying to replicate your art.

For the first time, I was a 2nd shooter at a wedding last night and used the foamie black thingie most of the night (at times pointing it in the wrong direction but I did get some nice shots). The main photographer wondered what the heck I had strapped to my flash and asked if I wanted to use his Gary Fong.

Neil, can you tell me with the last 4 dance floor photos of Sara and Alex’s engagement party, would you have been using the black foamie thing & where were you pointing the flash? Straight up, behind you?

If you have the time, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ernst

Comment by Ernst — May 26, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
Ernst,

Just to keep the techie stuff separate from the wedding and portrait work .. I decided to re-post your question here, as well as the 4 images you are referring to. : )

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — May 26, 2009 @ 5:34 pm
Comment by Neil — May 26, 2009 @ 5:36 pm
With the first three images, I used the Black Foamie Thing and bounced behind me over my shoulder.

The direction of the shadows will tell you exactly how I bounced my flash. You can especially clearly see it in the 3rd image.

I should mention that the 1st image is a tighter vertical crop of a horizontal image, with some clutter edited out of the background.

The 4th image, is actually one where I was shooting too fast and my flash didn’t fire. The resulting image was 2 stops under-exposed, and lit only by whatever available light there was. But I liked it more than the image where the flash fired. I think the house lights were already on at the end of the party, so there was a fair amount of light. (Settings were 1/60th @ f4 @ 1600 ISO) Even with such gross under-exposure, the D3 image looked quite clean using ACR and Bridge to edit it.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil — May 26, 2009 @ 7:23 pm