> 6 minute read

Taking Your Camera on a Night Out

X Series cameras are small and light, so it’s perfectly possible to stash yours away in your bag or coat pocket when you’re out for the night.

Picture the scene: you’re on a night out with friends. You’re having a great time catching up, retelling old stories, and laughing at jokes. Someone suggests a group photo. What do you do? Most people will reach for their smartphone, which will do an OK job. But if you’ve got your X Series camera with you, then you can do much better than just ‘OK’.

One of the big advantages of an X Series camera over a smartphone is the low-light performance. You can create pictures in the atmospheric light of a bar or restaurant that retain all of that ambience – and without sacrificing picture quality. Our advice is:

• Increase the ISO sensitivity of your camera to around ISO 3200, or set Auto ISO with an ISO 3200 limit.
• Then switch on your lens’s Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS), if it has it. This will iron out any accidental camera shake as you photograph.
• OIS doesn’t stop moving subjects from blurring, however, so try to create images when your subjects are stationary, or tell them “Stay nice and still” just before a posed photo.

OIS isn’t the only lens technology that can help in low light. You could also consider buying a larger aperture lens that lets in more light – a great bonus in dark, ambient situations. Good examples are the FUJINON XF18mmF2 R or XF27mmF2.8, which are both really small and light – the perfect match for a small camera body on a night out.

Group Pictures

We all love a group picture of everyone around the table. Whether you create this yourself or hand the camera to your server, there are a few things you can do to make sure everyone looks their best.

• Set an aperture of F8 to ensure everyone is sharp and in focus.
• This might cause the shutter speed to be slower than is ideal, so raise the ISO until your shutter speed reads around 1/60 sec when you’re pointing your camera at the group.
• Use high-speed continuous shooting for a burst of several pictures, instead of just one. The chances of getting a picture where everyone is looking at the camera and nobody is blinking will be much higher.

People Pictures

Once your camera is out and people have become used to the idea, you’ll be able to snap some candid pictures of your friends talking fairly easily, without anyone realising. Just know when to stop and don’t be ‘that person with the camera’ all night!

Use a wide aperture such as F4 to blur the background behind your subject and to let in as much light as possible. Again, your OIS will also be useful in letting you photograph using the ambient light around you, even if it’s a little dark. And if anyone really likes a picture you’ve snapped and would like a copy, you can send it to them on the spot if you have your camera connected to your smartphone and the FUJIFILM Camera Remote app.

The Small Details

Food looks good photographed close. Don’t worry that shallow depth-of-field means only part of it looks sharp – this is a look used by some of the best food photographers in the world and only helps make things look even more delicious.

To Flash or Not to Flash?

So far, we’ve not talked about using your camera’s flash. That’s because flash tends to replace the atmospheric, ambient light of the moment with harsh, front-on light of its own that kills the mood of the picture. It’s also not very discreet if you’re trying to photograph one of your friends without them knowing.

But there are times when there is simply not enough ambient light to make a picture, or when the ambient light is coming from a different direction and not lighting up your subject. In this case, using flash is perfectly acceptable, since the only alternative is not photographing at all.

A great approach is to set your camera to SLOW SYNCHRO, which you can access through the FLASH SETTING menu, depending on which X Series camera you’re using (consult the user manual for exact instructions on how to do this). In this flash mode, a longer shutter speed is used in order to let some ambient light from the room register in the photo. The flash will also light up the foreground subject – without overpowering your subject – which can give you the best of both worlds.

Your Next Steps

• CHALLENGE The next time you go for a night out, take your X Series camera with you and get some great pictures of you and your friends. Show us the best of them on social media using the hashtags #learnwithfujifilm and #flash. You can also submit your work here for a chance to be featured on our social media channels.