retirement banquet photos. D70s + flash

<p>i am shooting my first event next week for my professors retirement party at a lovely banquet hall in town. i've never done this before and only photograph for a hobby but he likes my photos. i'm not very technically knowledgable so i'm really nervice about lighting and lenses. <br>

i have a bit of gear<br>

i plan to use my d70s with sb-800<br>

i have a couple different types of lenses.</p>

<p>That's a nice complement that you were asked to shoot this. Some things to consider:<br>

- Are you getting paid for this? I only ask because of the expectation of being a paid event photographer versus being just a guy with a camera<br>

- Be ready to use your flash and bring lots of extra batteries for the flash<br>

- Do you have any fast lenses? These would be helpful and depending on how fast and the amount of light, you may be able to get away from not using the flash<br>

- Do you have any wide zooms? These might be useful<br>

- You might want to peruse the wedding forum. There's a lot of good tips in there about shooting events. Think about your shooting style. Do you want to be a fly on the fall, or do you want to be setting up the shots?<br>

- Think about what will happen if a piece of your equipment breaks? Flashes are prone to going bad. <br>

- Get there early. Adjust your while balance. Think about where you will be standing and the shots you want to get<br>

- Consider shooting in Raw in case you need to adjust the white balance later<br>

- If you are also a guest there, don't expect that you'll get to sit down more than a minute or two. It is virtually impossible combining being the photographer and enjoying yourself as a guest<br>

Good luck and try to have fun.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>so i'm really nervice</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So I'm guessing he isn't your English professor. :P Your gear will handle the job fine. I've shot several events like that with a D70s, SB-800, and either the 18-55 kit lens or an 18-200 VR. Put the D70s in 'A' mode, set the white balance to 'auto', set the ISO to 200, put the flash in 'TTL' mode (if it isn't already), set the lens aperture to f/5.6 or f/8, and fire away. You'll definitely want to use the diffuser on the flash. If you can, bounce the flash off the ceiling - it'll light people more evenly and defeat redeye. Try 60 degrees tilt on the flash head (the scale is on the back of the flash head). To get a more natural background, you can set the camera to trigger the flash 'second curtain' (see your D70s' manual) and maybe open the lens' diaphragm to f/4. If the shutter speed gets so slow that the pics are blurry, take it back out of 'second curtain'. Read the part in your camera and the flash's manual about flash exposure compensation and practice changing it back and forth. Practice shooting with your flash before you go - you can always delete the practice shots.</p>

<p>Barry's advice about shooting raw is good if you need to correct anything in post-processing. You could shoot jpg+raw if you have enough memory. Practice with your flash before you go - you can always delete the practice shots (yes, I said this already, for emphasis).</p>

<p>Day of the event: make sure your camera battery is fully charged, put a fresh set of batteries in the flash, bring a spare set, and make sure you have your memory/cards formatted (the camera's manual again) and empty. Trust your camera and yourself, and concentrate on composition. Have fun. </p>