7 Best Lens for Night Club Photography: (2023 Guide & Reviews)

The nightclub scene is one of the most demanding fields of photography in terms of just skill and mentally challenging lighting, abrasive customers, late nights, and loud music.

People are constantly telling you that all you do is take photos, and they could do your job.

And, you know, it can be fun, and it can be rewarding.

So which is the best lens for nightclub photography?

I will review my favorite 7 best lenses for nightclub photography, which I always recommend, and it might work for you as well.

Let’s drive in:

Which is the best lens for Night Club photography?

Here are my recommended top 7 best lens for Night club photography:-

Canon 35mm F/2:

This is my go-to lens when I’m doing nightclub photography or videography.

It’s an F2 with image stabilization and ultrasonic motor focusing, so it’s really quick. It’s pretty quiet.

The image stabilization is good for up to four stops, which is really awesome if you’re working in low light, and you don’t want to bump up the ISO, and you’re trying to stay at a decent shutter speed.

This will allow some stabilization with slower shutter speeds; you would have to focus on the slides.

This is awesome when you’re getting some close-up portraits or close upon any like shots that you can’t get because you don’t have the macro lens.

This will allow you to get decently close, but it’s at 35 millimeters, so it’s going to be a little wide.

So the 35 was the first one I bought; when I bought my 5D Mark 4, which was my first canon.

I started using it for video with another photographer to shoot a nightclub party with the 35 has been a great focal length for me.

I really love just keeping it on me at all times; it’s usually the only lens I have on the camera. The 35 is probably my favorite focal length.

When I worked with the other guy that I shoot nightclub with, and I like it and all that, I love having the image stabilization because I don’t have a stabilizer I don’t have a Ronin or a crane or anything to stabilize.

It’s been a really great lens, allowing me to use handheld shots. It’s definitely my go-to, as I’ve said before.

Sigma 30mm F1.4:

I’ve had this lens for about a year now; I have a good idea as to what I like, what I don’t like.

They are a crop sensor, meaning; this 30 mil becomes about 1.6 times bigger.

So it’s actually about 48 millimeters, so around a 50-millimeter lens.

It’s a very well-made lens that has a lot of weight to it.

They haven’t cut any corners, everything turns and works very nicely even connecting it to a camera feels very solid, the mounting system is made of metal which we like.

It is so very well built.

So what do I shoot? What do I use this lens for?  I’ve used it for nightclub photography, music concerts, and parties this year.

What do I like about this lens?

I did a lot of research when I bought this lens, and the one thing everyone talked about was the sharpness and the quality of the image, and it’s completely true.

Even the low aperture is like 1.4, it’s still pretty sharp, so the very nice quality of the picture of this lens for both photo and video.

So back to the end with the incredibly wide 1.4 aperture, so you can take pictures and video in crazy dark environments, and you’re still going to get pretty good quality.

If you love bokeh, this is the lens for you; f 1.4, it’s buttery smooth, it’s so good. I love the bokeh on this lens.

The autofocus is not that bad; it works well. 75 80% of the time, it’s a little slower than the Sony native lenses, but it does work, so that’s a good thing.

Now, what do I not like about the lens?

The main thing that I do not like and everyone says they don’t like about this lens is the focus ring; the focus ring is very nice to turn, but the problem is that it’s a focus by wire lens.

What that means is when you turn this inside, nothing is happening; there are no moving parts.

It’s all digitally focused, so your camera and the lens combined focus on the image.

Now that’s not always a problem, but in this lens, it is you can turn it a tiny amount, and it will completely go from being in focus to out of focus which isn’t normal.

A little tiny adjustment should give you a little tiny focus adjustment, not in this lens.

So yeah, I said the autofocus works about 80% of the time; the other 20% of the time, it doesn’t work too well. It haunts.

So who should buy this? So if you’re a photographer, it’s a great lens, it’s super sharp, you’re going to get close to a 50-millimeter focal length with the crop involved, or otherwise, you’re 30 mils.

So an excellent lens for portraits, super sharp, and the bokeh 1.4 is beautiful; for video use, well, I use it for video myself.

Sigma 35mm F1.4:

The 35 mil lens is considered a slightly wide-angle lens, and it’s perfect for many things.

I like to use it for portraits where I want the background to also be in the frame to get less idea of the surroundings.

It’s also perfect for nightclubs, weddings, street photography for general lifestyle photography, and many other things in between.

35 to prime is also really good because you have a low aperture, and in this lens, it’s an aperture of F 1.4.

And what that means is you can really open up this lens and let huge amounts of light into your sensor and shooting shallow light conditions.

So for the Sigma 35 mil f 1.4 art lens that I’ve owned for about a year now.

I’ve had a great time shooting on this lens; I found it a delightful lens to use.

It has excellent build quality, the manual focus ring is really nice and easy to use, and the body is rugged and durable.

I’ve used it a lot, and I haven’t seen any wiring in any of the numbers or anything like that.

The focus rubber is still nice and tight on the lens as well.

It’s still focusing very well, I don’t have any issues with the focusing motor, and it’s focusing very quickly and accurately.

It focuses really well, and it’s tack sharp in the middle of the image.

So we have some stunning sharpness, and it’s quite a demanding 42-megapixel sensor, and we’re still getting some really excellent sharpness.

That’s an excellent result for any lens at its lowest aperture possible, particularly a lens with a maximum aperture of 1.4.

The lens is quite small considering it’s an f 1.4 lens, and it only weighs about 665 grams.

It’s a nice compact piece of gear that you can carry around without any problems.

That being said, in the world of 35 mil lenses, it is definitely not the smallest lens you can get.

That is everything I have to say about this lens. Would I recommend this lens to people? Absolutely yes.

Canon 50mm F1.4:

So the first thing we’re going to be talking about is the build quality of this lens.

So, this lens has a premium plastic construction with a rubberized focus ring.

This lens also includes a focus window, which is perfect if you plan to use this lens for manual focusing.

It’s also nice to see on the lens of this price range.

On the rear of the lens, you will also see a metal mount plate.

This really does add a compact rigid shell to this lens on the front of this lens.

You will also see that the front glass element is safely recessed into the camera body, which is perfect for protection, meaning you don’t have to buy a lens hood or UV filter.

When I first purchased this lens, I found the focus ring was smooth and well-damped, but over time and using this lens; I found it stiffened up to become difficult to use, especially for video.

So due to the premium plastic construction stiff focus ring and lack of weather sealing, I’m going to be giving this lens a 7 out of 10 for build quality.

So the next thing I’m going to be talking about is image quality.

This lens provides sharp images and an incredibly bright 1.4 aperture, perfect for shallow depth of field shots and low light photography.

Due to the standard 50 mil focal length, this lens is perfect for all types of photography, including nightclub portraits and street photography.

This lens also has an 8 aperture bladed diaphragm and an incredibly low aperture of 1.4.

This lens is excellent for Creative Photography and adds an incredibly smooth background compared to the 50 mils 1.8.

This lens lets in 66% for light, which really does show you the advantages of having a 1.4 aperture lens in your camera.

But when using this lens, I have found a prominent vignetting issue, especially if you stopped down to 1.4.

The lens also has a problem with soft and blurry corners, especially if he stopped down.

So due to this lens having a prominent vignetting issue and problem with soft and blurry corners, I’m only going to be giving this lens an 8 out of 10 for image quality.

So the next thing I’m going to be looking at is the size and weight of this lens. This is a 50 mil standard prime lens.

The lens is quite small and won’t take a lot of room up in your camera bag.

This lens really isn’t large at all, especially compared to 1.4 aperture wide lenses. With a filter thread of just 58 millimeters, the filter price will be considerably lower than other prime lenses out there on the market.

This lens also weighs light.

So, this lens is great if you’re planning on taking on a clubbing, long hike, or maybe even on holiday.

So as this lens is small and light and won’t take up a lot of room in your camera bag.

This lens has a USM or an ultrasonic motor.

This allows for extremely quick and near-silent autofocus and with an impressive amount of torque to ensure the focus is obtained quickly and accurately without overshooting.

Although after a while, I have found a little bit of noise, especially if you’re using this lens on autofocus for video work.

This lens is reasonably priced, especially if you compare it to other 50 mil standard prime lenses at 1.4 aperture.

In my opinion, it is one of the sharpest lenses at this focal distance, so I’m going to be giving this lens an 8 out of 10 for the price is.

This is a recommended lens to have in your camera.

Tokina 11-20mm F2.8:

This lens, I would say, is a bit more all around. Because at 11 you can cover a big crowd or those more like big stages.

And it’s also good for small spaces. Plus, you have to 20, which is great for stops have like individual in the crowd.

So that’s why I like this length because he can easily switch between showing the whole scene showing a bit more like one person you want to focus your attention on.

This is also nice that it’s a 2.8 lens, which means you can level a bit more light.

So I use this a lot for natural light pictures of the events.

Also, the 2.8 will make all the lights look a bit more out of focus, so that’s also really nice.

I really like this lens, it’s awesome to get like a big crowd as well, and it has less distortion.

This lens is excellent for capturing people.

What I love about it is that you can capture more of the environment.

Because of the 2.8, as I said, you can really get some excellent depth to the image.

The 2.8 is great if you want to shoot realistic pictures because it helps to let in a bit more light, nice life backgrounds.

I would recommend this; you need the level if you’re really more into big events and want to get in crowds.

It’s a great, great body and event lens.

Sigma 18-35 F1.8:

It is one of my favorite lenses to shoot with.

The downside is that the 18 isn’t wide enough if you really want to get those big crowds or stages or really show the defense’s interior.

I found it is not wide enough. But it’s a great lens for shooting the people at events.

You can shoot them at the 1.8 aperture, which will give you a really nice depth of field; you could shoot at 3.5, 4.5 Even F9.

The downside to this lens, it’s really big. The headset is heavy, like using this lens feels like work on your shoulder.

Because a lot of times at events I’m shooting like this I’m shooting like just walking in the crowd, assuming the people, and I got like a big flash on it’s on my camera, and this lens setup is heavy, so that’s like the downside to eat.

But overall, great length; if you’re really focused on capturing the people and moments of certain individuals at the party, I would say this is a great option for you.

I really use it to focus on one person in the crowd and really capture their emotion.

The lens is super sharp, which has a really quality feeling. And you can really focus like it has a bit more shallow depth of field.

So, you can really focus on one person and make them pop out of the environment, which I really like.

Also, there’s just something about the quality that the lens produces that is amazing.

Also, because of this aperture of 1.8, you can use it to get some party details.

It’s a perfect lens to give to people and to get to some details of the body.

Sony 24mm F1.4:

It’s an low light beast.

I finally pulled the trigger on a new prime lens; I found myself stuck in low-light situations, so naturally, I wanted to test that.

My impression of this beast right now is it’s absolutely incredible.

I’m tired of this lens on a video shoot for few days out in Las Vegas clubs.

Let’s talk about some of the specs for you guys that haven’t been doing much research.

So when it comes to this lens, it’s very lightweight and small.

It has a nice, smooth ring, but it’s very tight, which is nice because it’s not going to bang around, change.

Besides that, just like most of the G Master lenses, you can set this to focus, or Eye Autofocus got the focus hold button on the side and the manual and autofocus toggle switch.

I’m not going to talk to you guys about the specs of the lens; I want to talk about what this bad boy can do in low light, what it can do for a photo or video.

This lens is absolutely insane. It’s my new favorite lens for video and photos, especially for nightclubs.

It’s very fast. I don’t get any lens glare on the lens; there’s some new coating that Sony said they’re using, not a really cool thing is.

A new motor inside these lenses can make this one specifically focus very fast, and I really love it.

It’s lightweight; it’s all my gimbal set up; I’m not breaking my back using heavy zoom lenses anymore.

When I have low light situations, I know I can rely on this guy, and it’s pretty affordable for the price point with the G Master lens.

How do you photograph night clubs?

I’m going to share with you some of my best tips for photographing nightclubs. I’ve been a professional photographer for over ten years and have photographed all sorts of events, but nothing compares to the energy that comes from being in a club! One thing is clear: there are lots of factors that can affect how your photos turn out.

1) The key is getting there early enough before it gets too crowded and making sure you’re taking full advantage of the light sources available.

2) Night clubs are a popular place for people to go out and have a good time. The lighting creates an exciting ambiance, but it’s also essential to pay attention to the background when photographing at night.

You don’t want anything distracting from your subject!

3) To help make your nightclub photographs pop, try using artificial lighting like strobes or flashes. You can also use bounce cards as reflectors when shooting at night so that there is some ambient light backlighting your subjects and bouncing around the room for more even coverage from all angles.

4) Use High-Speed Memory Cards: Keep your camera in continuous shooting mode, use high-speed memory cards so that you can take as many shots as possible without waiting for it to process or write them on your card.

Also, make sure not to keep all of these photos on one card if you have more than one because they’ll eventually run out when the other is being read.

5) Bring Extra Batteries: Make sure your battery is fully charged before going into the club.

CONCLUSION:

Alright, guys, so that concludes all the lenses we will talk about today in this article.

Do you guys have any experience with these lenses? What are your thoughts on them?

Which is your best lens for nightclub photography?

Is there a lens that I didn’t mention in this article that you love to use for nightclubbing?

Would you please leave your thoughts and comments below?

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