Photographing a child's birthday party for a friend.. Need advice for lens selection. Is f2.8 fast enough?

john1970 · Dec 14, 2024

Dear Everyone,

I am photographing a child's birthday party for a friend in early February. The venue is a 2000 sq. ft. room with high (15-20 ft) black ceilings. It will be a dance party so I am expecting lighting to be relatively dark. My photography is usually nature, macro and wildlife so I inexperienced with regards to even photography.

A few questions I have:

1) Should I consider using.a flash? I would prefer not to do so, but some advice here would be useful.
2) Are lenses with f2.8 aperture going to be fast enough? I also have fast primes (f1.2-f1.4) that I could use.
3) What focal length will be the most useful?

I was hoping I could get away with the Canon R1 and RF 24-105 mm f2.8 Z lens as a single body single lens solution, but my concern is that the f2.8 aperture will be too slow.

Any advice and guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
John

neuroanatomist · Dec 14, 2024

Three kids here, have shot a lot of birthday parties. If your goal is memory shots of the party, you’ll be fine with an f/2.8 lens. I’ve used an 85/1.2 and 135/2 at those events, and those are nice if you want to take pictures of just one kid, but the DoF is generally insufficient for more than one kid…and you probably what to highlight the kids having fun with each other, not isolate one kid at a time from the crowd.

The exception might be to stop fast action. For example, at one party at an indoor rock gym, I got good shots of each kid going down the zip line with the 135/2 at f/2.

Many of my birthday party images are stopped down to f/4.5 or f/5 for sufficient DoF. As long as you’re using a good RAW converter like DxO, going up to ISO 25600 will get you by, IMO.

Personally, I’d skip the flash. If you could bounce it off the ceiling, maybe yes but with high, black ceilings that’s out. I have used on-camera direct flash in really dark settings, for that I use a Lastolite EzyBox Speedlite, a ~9x9” softbox that straps to a larger flash (600EX, EL-5, etc.) and softens the light enough to work for my taste.

Good luck!

john1970 · Dec 14, 2024

neuroanatomist said:
Three kids here, have shot a lot of birthday parties. If your goal is memory shots of the party, you’ll be fine with an f/2.8 lens. I’ve used an 85/1.2 and 135/2 at those events, and those are nice if you want to take pictures of just one kid, but the DoF is generally insufficient for more than one kid…and you probably what to highlight the kids having fun with each other, not isolate one kid at a time from the crowd.

The exception might be to stop fast action. For example, at one party at an indoor rock gym, I got good shots of each kid going down the zip line with the 135/2 at f/2.

Many of my birthday party images are stopped down to f/4.5 or f/5 for sufficient DoF. As long as you’re using a good RAW converter like DxO, going up to ISO 25600 will get you by, IMO.

Personally, I’d skip the flash. If you could bounce it off the ceiling, maybe yes but with high, black ceilings that’s out. I have used on-camera direct flash in really dark settings, for that I use a Lastolite EzyBox Speedlite, a ~9x9” softbox that straps to a larger flash (600EX, EL-5, etc.) and softens the light enough to work for my taste.

Good luck!

Thank you. I will take the 24-105 mm f2.8 as the main lens and the 35 mm f1.4 and 50 mm f1.4 lenses as backups. I will skip the flash.

mmmm · Dec 15, 2024

If you can get away with skipping the flash, or maybe you’re just not comfortable with using the flash, then great. But you should definitely take a couple nonetheless, especially if you’re not entirely certain what the lighting situation will be like.

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Photographing a child's birthday party for a friend.. Need advice for lens selection. Is f2.8 fast enough?

john1970

EOS R1

neuroanatomist

john1970

EOS R1

mmmm

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