Original subtitles

This is a very popular and also common

way of capturing parties with a flash.

It's also called a dragging shutter effect, as

the slow shutter speed drags the light from

the background, making every photograph look a bit

more dynamic and fun.

We use this look pretty often when capturing

parties, so let me show you how we

do it.

The key in creating photos like this is

to make your shutter really slow.

A sweet spot for me is around 1

fifth of a second, but it can be

a bit faster or a bit slower depending

on the amount of ambient light you want

to drag.

It usually works best with those disco lights,

but with some tweaks, it can even make

the romantic fairy lights look like a part

of the party.

In this setup, I often keep the flash

attached to the camera.

I don't shoot in TTL mode, but I'd

rather set my flash manually, as I shoot

most of the time from a similar distance

in these situations.

On a typical party with lots of disco

lights and generally dark ambience, I would set

my flash to be between 1 quarter and

1 eighth of a power, and then I

would set the zoom on the flash a

bit more closed, so usually over 100 millimeters.

I also often close the aperture completely, so

to f22, and then I can shoot literally

without focusing.

In these darker situations, I want to avoid

the camera waiting to focus and I just

like to shoot, so I would manually set

the focus distance on my camera or on

the lens to, let's say, one and a

half meters, and then I would maintain this

distance to my subject.

And even if I miss the distance a

bit, basically everything will stay completely sharp at

f22, and I will not miss any of

the crazy party moments.

So, my aperture will be fully closed, my

shutter will be slow, as I said, somewhere

around a fifth of a second, and then

I would just fix the general exposure with

my ISO setting in the camera.

Just note that if the ambient light is

brighter, you might get the light to spill

over your subject's faces.

It happens if your flash is set too

low in the power, so to avoid this,

just add a bit more power to the

flash, get the shutter a bit faster, and

finally fix the ISO setting to maintain the

proper exposure.

And on the other hand, if there is

almost no light to drag whatsoever, I would

then make my shutter speed even slower, sometimes

to, let's say, one second or two seconds,

so that I can point my camera and

after the flash fires, I would then point

it to the light source and drag the

light.

Now, there is this one little extra setting

on the flash that I didn't want to

bring up any earlier, as this is only

important if you shoot with long exposures and

flash, but because this is what exactly we're

gonna do to achieve this look, now I

think it's time to set it properly.

And it's the flash's curtain setting.

If you've ever been playing around with your

flash's menu, you might have noticed this symbol.

Basically, what it affects is the moment when

the flash will fire.

We can have the flash fire at the

beginning of the exposure or at the very

end.

Whatever you set, you won't really see much

difference if your shutter speed is set to

a tiny fraction of a second, like 1

60th of a second.

But this change becomes very noticeable if we

make our shutter speed slow, like for the

dragging shutter effect.

Here's what's different.

So, if our flash fires at the first

curtain, or, in other words, in the beginning

of the exposure, it will freeze our subjects

and then it will give us some time

to shake the camera and drag the light

on the sensor.

And if it fires on the last curtain

or at the end of the exposure, then

it will first open the sensor to pick

up the ambient light and then at the

very end of the shutter, being open, it

will fire the flash.

Now, when I'm shooting a party, I want

to freeze the moment and then add some

light trails.

So that's why I always have my flash

fire at the first curtain rather than on

the last.

Otherwise, I would firstly be capturing light trails

and then I would have to point my

camera to the subject and this idea really

doesn't work for me because I want to

freeze the moment as I press the shutter

and not at some random time while I'm

shaking the camera.

Of course, there are instances in, let's say,

sports photography where you would want to have

your flash at the rear curtain, but it

doesn't really work well for shooting a party,

at least in my opinion.

But anyway, now that you know what the

curtain setting does, you can play with it

and see what best works for you.

And that's how we make the dynamic party

look.

Next up is another look I would use

for parties and I call it the spotlight

party look.

See you in the next lesson.