When someone gets into nightclub, nightlife, and concert photography, knowing and using the right nightclub photography settings is a big deal. As a ‘newbie’, no one wants to take bad photos because as a photographer, you won’t want to be embarrassed by showing your subjects a horrible shot! So, understanding what settings to use for particular shots is very important. What shutter speed? What aperture? What ISO? Over expose or under expose? There are so many questions and you only have a few seconds to adjust your camera between shots in a nightclub night when the party starts.

I will be discussing many different camera settings for different situations in the Ultimate Nightclub Photography Guide that will improve your photos immediately. Right now, however, I want to focus on something much more fundamental, and really, much more important than knowing a few different shutter, aperture, and ISO combinations. I want to emphasize that you really need to know your camera inside and out. In other words, truly master all the functions, features, and menus of your camera. Honestly, I know many photographers who are only weekend warriors and they cannot handle a camera as quickly and gracefully as a professional. If you don’t use your camera often, you’re not going to be able to make on the fly changes in different settings fast enough. As a result, you’re likely not going to get a good variety of shots because you’ll probably stick to the camera settings you’ve grown used to, and if you’re slow, you’re going to miss some great photo opportunities while you’re fiddling with your camera!

The point is, knowing what nightclub photography settings to use for different shots is one thing, but more important than that is knowing your camera like the back of your hand. Unless you shoot very often, I doubt you could tell me, instinctively, what direction to ‘turn the knob’  to increase shutter speed, widen your aperture, or lower your ISO. These are extreme basics you need to know when shooting in a dynamic environment like a nightclub.

Start handling your camera everyday. Even if you don’t have a shoot, make sure you practice, practice, and practice. Also, when’s the last time you’ve read your camera’s manual? You might be amazed at the things you will learn about your camera that you never knew, or be pleasantly reminded about certain features you used to use but forgot about for some reason. Once you know your camera very well, you will have a lot of confidence to experiment with different nightclub photography settings on the go.

I recent had a shoot at Red Circle Lounge in San Diego. When I took a few test photos, there always seemed to be a shade of red dominating the pictures. I guess that’s why they call the place Red Circle! I tried different white balance settings on my camera, but regardless if I used the “Flash” white balance setting or “Auto” white balance, I would not get consistent white balance (i.e. some photos still had the dominating red light). For some photos, the color effect was nice but I definitely didn’t want all my photos turning out that way.

This leads me to what I want to discuss in this blog post. Should you shoot in RAW or JPEG in a nightclub? It’s debatable. There are photographers who like to shoot in JPEG because they process faster and because a memory card can hold a lot more photos taken in JPEG. However, during post processing, there is not as much flexibility. For example, when taking photos in JPEG, it’s important to really nail your white balance at the beginning of your shoot. You will not be able to adjust the white balance as easily and with more control than in RAW during post processing.

With RAW you do not need to worry about getting an exact white balance because you can fully adjust white balance settings in Lightroom, Photoshop, Aperture, or any other photo editing software. Now you might be able to nail your white balance down for a particular club shooting in JPEG and you don’t need to worry about post processing to get it right. If this is the case, then JPEG is fine to shoot in especially if you plan on taking hundreds and hundreds of photos in one shoot. As I mentioned above, your camera will be able to process JPEGs faster and can hold more photos in JPEG. (The average 21.1 megapixel JPEG is 8mb while a 21.1 megapixel photo in RAW is about 21mb.)

RAW is still king in my opinion though. RAW format gives you the most bits of data to work with during post processing and delivers the highest quality possible. When you are out shooting, any photographer will tell you that you never know when a great photo opportunity will come your way, or that they can be pleasantly surprised with how certain photos turn out. When this happens, you want to know that you can take, or took, your photos at the highest quality possible. You don’t want to regret it by having your camera on JPEG.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for JPEG; but, with my camera, it’s always set to RAW.