Help, advice etc please

Last night I was asked to *take some informal shots* of a Haloween/16th birtday party. An interesting assignment, but filled with problems.

The lighting consisted of flickering candles, LEDs, strobes and several dozen flashes from mobile phones (am I the only one to think that putting cameras in phones is somehow cheating?)

The room was tiny, and filled with teens in fancy dress who in turn were filled with WKD and Jaeger Bombs.

A lot more of them were in the kitchen, doing the *picture taken at arms length with a HTC camera* poses...

I think I managed to record the atmosphere. Hard not to when someone actually managed to set fire to a real pumpkin

I'm going to put up a couple of the pics that I think work. That actually have merit, and aren't just snapshots of the evening.

I'm struggling here, you may realise, to try and integrate what I consider *taking pictures* to their idea of *recording an event involving a party and alcohol*...I'm sure I achieved the latter, not so sure of the former...

(Forgive the direct flash, it was the only way of having any control at all of the light)
1)




2)




3)(These, I think, is the kind of picture they were after)




4)




5)





I think that had I been given any warning (they phoned me as the party had started to come and get the shots) I would have made some plans. Such as ear-plugs

How would you have done it? How would you post-process? Where did I go wrong?

Gaz

One of the problems in giving advice about still photographs is you were there, so making a judgement on how the pictures convey an event I don't think can be done on a forum like this.

This is where I believe a video recording comes into its own, it captures such events so much better with the noise-movement and general ambience, something a stills camera just can't do.

Bazza

The Sony is really good at video, I should possibly have thought of that...darn...

Gaz

That's all part of the learning curve, knowing what to use and when. One thing about making an error is you are unlikely to make it again.

Bazza

Gaz

I live in the West Midlands so hopefully not too far from you. So if you want to have a play with my editing suit or lens then you are most welcome to come here and have a try. Will put up in PM my business web site and where I live if thats any help. You can always give me a call but not here for November on holiday.
Bazza

Thanks
I'm d/l ing a trial version of PSE 11, to see how it feels. I have some pics I took for work promotion to run through it to see how it feels. I may well be looking for help and advice.

Love the pics of the moon...I've been avoiding those lenses because of some bad write-ups online. I'm thinking however that the people disparaging them have several tens of hundreds of pounds to spend on glass. I really don't, so I am going to have another serious rethink. If they're usable for other shots as well I can see me getting one

Thanks again!

Gaz

See my PM to you

Bazza

Bumping up the ISO might have been worth trying Gaz? Either way you got some good shots.