I just shot a night time day of the dead parade. I hadn’t shot at night for awhile. No flash, just ambient light ( street and building lights) Was shooting at 1600 but quickly went to 6400+ ISO. Many shots were blurry but some real keepers though.

I would shoot with your fastest lenses to temper the ISO setting. And, as others stated walk the route around the planned time and shoot the traffic to work out your settings.

Not sure what you have committed to, but I think you will almost certainly have to use flash if there isn’t some unusual lighting going on. Parades are moving. It is dark. I would not think they have lighting even as good as a high school gym for indoor sports. The lighting is the key. Have you used flash before? You will need to understand how it works at distance. You will need to understand flash sync speeds, etc. You really need to do some testing beforehand, but I doubt you can recreate exactly what a parade will entail… slow moving vehicles will people standing on it moving around… bands marching down the street, etc.

I took photos at an evening Christmas parade once. It was very hard to get enough light on people’s faces. You probably want to figure out a good way to use flash for at least some of the shots.

Also, if you’re walking in a parade, keep your head on a swivel. This will enable you to not only spot good photo opportunities, but help keep you safe and out of the way of people in the parade. Those float drivers don’t always have the best visibility, and you can’t get good shots if you’re dead or in the hospital.

In my community, we have a similar event each year; for our area, it is a huge event. Our little town has only one stop light, and our event will draw several thousand people for a parade of less than ten blocks. It is at night with few street lights.

I try to set up on the intersection or another location where I will have as much ambient as possible and minimal subject movement and average out my exposure settings. It does not work all that well. The float Christmas lights and the headlights from other floats blow everything out, and you can’t see much. Lower the ISO, and you can’t see the people, but the float lights look good. Flash is handy when it is effective, but often, it creates a mess of its own. Bracketing could work if everything was moving. Not every shot is bad bad, but most are with only a few mediocre ones. Rarely a really good one. I know what I am doing and I have good gear; it is just brutal lighting, any way you look at it.

As others have stated, go to the location prior at the same time of the evening and practice. It is street photography in the extreme.

My tip: Do it.
Bring only 24-70, don’t waste time missing a moment swapping lenses.

Stay alert. Don’t get hit by a float.

You need lights, man.

Tripod and flash

It’s not hard just shoot like any other event you shoot.

Aside from the technical aspect, who is your client? Are you going to get paid?

You should definitely tell them that you never done such an event and manage expectations up front. If you think you are able to meet their expectations or they are cool with you “trying”, go for it!

See if you can find photos of previous years’ parade to get a sense of how the event will go and how other photographers approached the challenge.

Scout the location for good viewpoints and angles (same time as the parade).

Probably a good idea to carry two cameras with different lenses.

I’d go with two bodies, one wide and one telephoto (not too long if you are going to be close) mounted so you don’t have to swap lenses.

Maybe a speedlight if you want more people shots. I sometimes do a timelapse or long exposure from a tripod for these kind of things too.

Have you tested your lenses to see how they handle lens flare/ghosting from lights when it’s dark? I’ve never had a problem with mine, but I’ve always checked a new lens to make sure.

In low light I use manual mode with auto-ISO, I put the lens wide open, and I vary shutter speed to keep the ISO reasonable while keeping shutter fast enough to avoid blur. I might stop the lens down a little for more depth of field, if lighting allows. The parade might be lit up enough where you can get away with auto exposure. I would scout out the location and see what the lighting is like at night.

Changing lenses out in the open at night with people walking around is one of my least favorite things to do as a photographer. I’ve seen parade photographers in my area with two bodies, they seem to favor 70-200 and 24-70mm. I also shoot with two bodies but I don’t have those lenses yet.

When I’ve shot parades I find a spot with a couple of good vantage points near each other, like a corner where the parade rout makes a turn (so I can take pictures from “in front of the parade” without actually being in the way) that might be near a picturesque or recognizable back drop like a fountain, park, fire station, town hall, library etc. I scouted out what I thought would be a good spot, and the professionals came to the same spot.

It seems like the photographers and town employees are friendly with each other and they build some good will by taking pictures of all the fire fighters and EMT responders if fire trucks and ambulance are part of the parade.