Can anyone help me with my Sony a200

[pillinganthony]

I am looking for the best settings to take pictures in a nightclub with my camera, close up non moving pictures are good but if i take any action shots they look very simple.. I am looking to get the colour blur effect behind ppl but i dont know what settings to change for these shots or how to change them.

Anthony

[Anbesol]

You are either talking about panning blur, which involves panning the camera with your subjects movement, or you're talking about dof blur. For the former, you'll need a shutter of about 1/15th to 1/80th and whatever f-stop and ISO properly exposes off of that. Its tough though, you need to move with the subject and do it just right, a very difficult technique.

For DOF blur, just shoot with the widest f-stop you have. Ideally you would want an f/1.8-2.8 f-stop for dramatic focus transition/softness/bokeh. In other words, aperture priority mode (A) and set to the smallest number you can (which varies depending on lens). This is much easier than the other, but what does become difficult here is properly choosing a focus point, as you'll need to be much picker as DOF is very narrow.

Can you post some examples of the effects you are trying to achieve?

[DonSchap]

For what I believe he is after ... it sounds like a job for the SONY AF 50mm f/1.8 DT (<- click on this link) lens (the cheapest solution) at $150

Setting this lens to its wider apertures (f/1.8, 2, 2.5, 2.8) will probably provide you the illumination and lighting effects you are looking for.

Here is an image at f/2, that I got from my SONY AF 50mm f/1.4 lens.

[Anbesol]

Being in a nightclub though, and using an APS-crop sensor, I believe the 50mm wont be nearly wide enough. I think something as wide as 20mm-35mm max would be ideal here. Sigma has some f/1.8's in that range, Minolta and Sony have some f/2's and f/1.4's as well (for mucho bucks).

Bottom line though - you wont be doing them very well with kit lens (assuming as it wasn't specified), dramatic out of focus blur is characteristic of much wider aperture lens. The smaller the f/number, the more dramatic the blur, and yes, its a big difference between 3.5 and 2.8, and 2.8 and 2. You can't get a zoom that goes wider than f/2.8, you need a fixed lens to do anything at f/1.4-2.8 where dramatic blur gets really strong.

Link - this is the 24mm f/1.8, which I think would be ideal for your specific interest.

Don that is a terrific shot. Sometimes I think I should forget zoom lens' altogether and go strictly fixed, I'm reminded of this every time I see that creamy soft bokeh of shots like that one....

[DonSchap]

Just remember, the longer your focal length, the shallower the DOF is on the lens.

Here is a 135mm f/1.8 shot of my late puppy. His eyes are in focus and that is about all!



The subject distance was about three feet away and the actual DOF was about one inch! That is one-half inch behind his eyes and one-half inch in front of them. He had a long face, so it really made for a challenging shot. But those Christmas-lights really blossomed, eh? They were about ten-feet behind him.

Then, here's a more recent one (this past year) of my current pooch.


MF 85mm - f/5.6 - 1/60 sec - Manual Focus - WB=Flash - HVL-F20AM Bounce - Dist: 1 meter

Which proves even at f/5.6 ... if your lens is long enough, you can get the blossom!