Looking for low light/nightclub photography upgrade advice.

[silva88]

So I currently own a EOS R7 with a RF24-70 2.8. I started shooting for the night club I work at and my R7 is struggling a little bit. I usually have to push my ISO between 4000-6400 at a 2.8 aperture.

I was originally going to get a flash for when I needed to shoot stills, however the flash I was looking into seems like it was delayed ( EL-5 ). My second thought was to sell my R7 and get an R5 or R6 II.

The R5 should be getting a revamp in the next year or so, so that seems like a bad investment. As for the R6 II, I'm not sure if it'll be worth it coming from my R7.

Any advice?

[rs-eos]

While a newer body may lead to better ISO performance (I have not tested at all with any of Canon's R-series cameras, so I would only make a guess that moving from an EOS R7 to say an EOS R5 may lead to one perhaps two stops of better performance).

Double-check that you can add flash to the venue.  That can definitely be distracting and/or not be allowed.  If allowed, do consider using the flash units at lower power to be less distracting.  Multiple flashes here can definitely help.

If adding light isn't allowed, I'd strongly recommend looking at lenses with wider apertures.   While they wouldn't be zoom lenses, their maximum aperture would let in much more light.

e.g. an RF 135 mm f/1.8 (perhaps a bit too long?) would give you a bit over twice the light gathering.  So could lower ISO by a bit over one stop.

an RF 50 mm f/1.2 would give you over four times the light gathering.  So ISO can be lowered by over two stops.

[jrhoffman75]

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@silva88 wrote:

So I currently own a EOS R7 with a RF24-70 2.8. I started shooting for the night club I work at and my R7 is struggling a little bit. I usually have to push my ISO between 4000-6400 at a 2.8 aperture.

I was originally going to get a flash for when I needed to shoot stills, however the flash I was looking into seems like it was delayed ( EL-5 ). My second thought was to sell my R7 and get an R5 or R6 II.

The R5 should be getting a revamp in the next year or so, so that seems like a bad investment. As for the R6 II, I'm not sure if it'll be worth it coming from my R7.

Any advice?

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When you say struggling do you mean digital noise at those ISOs?

Download trial versions of Topaz Photo AI and DxO Pure Raw3. These are excellent AI based tools for noise reduction. May be all you need. 

[deebatman316]

"So I currently own a EOS R7 with a RF24-70 2.8. I started shooting for the night club I work at and my R7 is struggling a little bit. I usually have to push my ISO between 4000-6400 at a 2.8 aperture." Is the camera unable to lock focus too. Please post a few pictures in the forum. Your pictures will be quite noisy when using a high ISO.

[shadowsports]

@Silva88,

I do not believe a flash will not make you popular with your subjects or guests.

Ricky's "faster lens" suggestion would be a much better option.  

John's software recommendation might help too, Topaz and DxO have excellent noise reduction technologies.  

Upgrade considerations.  If low light shooting was your goal, a full frame body might have been a better option.  If making such a change is possible, moving to a R5 or R62 would improve things, but not a night to day improvement.  Your camera and lens are a system and work together.  So just getting a full frame body doesn't mean your low light challenges would be solved.  Should you consider an R5 today.  If I didn't have my R5 C, I might.  A year ago I didn't feel this way.  Rumors indicate a feature packed firmware update is in the works.

There is always going to be another camera.  The R52 is a ways off.    If things hold true, the R52 is going to be released before the R1 in 2024.  The R5 is currently the best selling/performing pro-sumer camera Canon has made to date.  If the new firmware gives it all the cool software features of the R62 people will be supremely happy. 

We are happy to look at your photos if you'd like to post them.

[ebiggs1]

Here's the direct skinny. A newer body may have better high ISO performance but it won't be a huge big deal. Improvements like that move in tiny steps. As to a faster prime lens, that too will offer little help with insufficient light. One stop is not a lot. Two stops begins to be helpful and three stops is worthwhile but this will lead to a drastic decrease in DOF. At club distances that may be a deal breaker if head shots are not the only shot you want.

 I hope you are doing the number one main most best thing and that is post editing and the use of Raw format. This mandatory option can be free if you use DPP4. Although, as stated above, there is software that can reduce the effects of high ISO grain but it is best to not put it in there to begin with. Raw and DPP4 can sometimes get you up to four stops.

The answer may well be everything. You need it all. Newer body, faster lens, Raw and DPP4. However always keep in mind all photography has its limits. Once exceeded there's little to nothing that can be done.

[johnrmoyer]

noise (grain) at larger ISO numbers

I hope some of this might be helpful.

For a given level of chip technology, larger pixels on the sensor chip permit more light gathering and better signal to noise level, but larger pixels mean less resolution. The EOS R6 has larger pixels than the EOS R7, but the field of view using the same lens will be different.

Higher camera temperature means higher noise levels. Constant focusing increases the temperature reported by the camera as the chips in the camera use more electrical power.

As others have suggested a faster lens permits a smaller ISO number and therefore less noise. The trade off is shallower depth of field.

I am not a fan of AI noise reduction, but others like it. I might be worth a try if the new content created by the AI is acceptable to you.

If the photo is to be used on a web page or social media at lower resolution, then one might use the raw CR3 file in Canon DPP with the noise resolution set to high and then scale the image to lower resolution and then sharpen with the goal of getting a lower resolution image with less visible noise. If using a Canon lens, DPP digital lens optimizer will sharpen, but with much noise it will also sharpen the noise. In DPP if using unsharp mask, set the radius to larger than the noise and larger than the artifacts created by noise reduction, for example 4.0 or larger. Sharpening with a larger radius may lose some detail. Sometimes sharpening both before and after scaling works better than sharpening only once. After scaling, a smaller radius might be better for unsharp mask.

I have found these helpful:

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/image-noise.htm

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sharpness.htm 

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/unsharp-mask.htm

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/local-contrast-enhancement.htm

https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/image-sharpening.htm

https://docs.gimp.org/2.10/en/gimp-filter-high-pass.html (requires more work than unsharp mask, but can sharpen with a larger radius)