Low Light...Feels Right

Emcee and dancer Jason "Sensation" & DJ Astro kept all the 13 and 40-somethings moving 4 hours straight!

One of the big draws of spending big bucks on cameras and fast lenses these days is the ability to shoot in low and challenging light.

Well, I got to put my Z6 to the test MLK weekend down in L.A. while attending an amazing Bat Mitzvah Dance Party held at the “renown” Hungarian Cultural Alliance. That's right, all the cool kids know about the HCA.

All jokes aside, the HCA (my acronym) is an amazing hip bohemian space reminiscent of a New York City lower east side night club (as if I would know that?) The 500 square foot-ish dance floor and Boogie Nights atmosphere would make any 40-something - and of course 13 year old - want to put on their best polyester and platform shoes.

The dance floor with multicolored lasers, strobes, and disco balls brings unique challenges to capture images in low and ever changing light conditions…and moods. Trying to balance a high ISO with a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the dancing while still letting in enough light to minimize noise was no easy task.

I took a few shots in auto mode to see what the camera had to say and I landed on a high ISO of 12,800 and a shutter speed of 1/400th to attempt to freeze the action on the dance floor. Did it work? Well, let's just say...it's complicated.

Where It Worked

For starters, it worked extremely well when capturing DJ Astro and Emcee Jason “Sensation” on stage (and check out that first Instagram photo shown - it’s mine!) The multicolored lights and strobes were a bit challenging, but there was enough light to capture fairly sharp images of the action on the stage. And by god there was dancing on that stage! The Bat Mitzvah girl said she wanted dancing, and she got 4 non-stop hours of Jason’s high octane energy the whole night. He made for a “sensational” subject as you can tell from these images below.

It also worked extremely well in surprising fashion while shooting video in auto mode. I've yet to really experiment shooting video in manual on the Z6, but one feature I love is being able to grab photos while capturing video. You can't get raw files, but the JPEGs I got were quite sharp and well exposed.

It also worked well in other circumstances where the light was more stable like on stage, at the photo booth, and away from the dance floor.

Where It Came Up Short

Like most hip club atmospheres, there were definitely pockets where lighting was quite dim. Even with a high ISO, I just couldn't get a decent exposure. In Lightroom I was able to bring back some of the details, but the photos weren't sharp and had a lot of noise.

What I needed to do for sure was shoot longer exposures. For example, for the posed pictures and slower dancing, I should have slowed the shutter from 1/400th to perhaps 1/125th. In fact, many of the video JPEG stills were shot at 1/30th and came out sharp and bright enough at that shutter speed.

Note: If you haven’t caught on yet, no flash was used in the photography or filming of any of these images. The Z6 has no built in flash.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Off the dance floor, I had a lot of fun shooting around the club and trying to capture all the bohemian charm throughout the night.