My take on photography/videography

My rule of thumb has always been do not shoot under 1/60 handheld, anything lower than that gets risky and at 1/30th its nearly impossible to take a sharp picture without a tri-pod. So naturally you would never think of keeping your shutter open for a half a second handheld right? Well not only is it possible, I highly recommend it.

So this is where we start going into the weird world of shutter dragging and the right exposure settings to accomplish it successfully.

This technique is recommended at night or in a in dimly lit atmosphere where you can see exactly where every light source is. You need a flash. It can be on camera or hotshoe. Lastly you need to get your camera into manual mode.

Three things you need to remember: 1. Flash Freezes your subject 2. Aperture controls your exposure 3.Shutter speed controls the collection of ambient light.

Things to look out for: strong light sources like televisions and small intense lights like l.e.d.'s in lamps, these can be picture killers.

My magic settings when I shoot at nightclubs and weddings are: shutter speed of 0"3/F5.6/iso 400, (Canon 430EXII Speedlite) ETTL mode -1/3power. This is a formula acquired after years of shooting and tens of thousands of photographs. Remember rules are meant to be broke, you might find settings that work better for you and your favorite lenses.

These settings are meant for direct flash, if you bounce you may need to juice up the power on your flash or possibly put it in manual mode to get the shot. I recommending bouncing your flash as much as possible. Off a ceiling, off a wall or a window, sometimes off the ground or a bar countertop. This gives dimension and lighting patterns on peoples faces.

So now your exposing your background and its not dark and looking like a snapshot. Now try giving the camera a twist after the flash fires. This is going to add a new weird dimension to your photographs and at the same time draw attention to the subject your flash froze.

This may be risky because you might get a rogue light that burns through someones face and people are not going to stand around waiting for you to get it right, so always try to be aware of all light sources. There is a fine line between what looks sloppy and what looks great with a long shutter drag.