TylerW
Well-known member
Uploading PP'd images to the super secret gallery now and will request Ana's approval this afternoon!
group buy on Alienbees kits anyone?
group buy on Alienbees kits anyone?
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Digital SLR / DSLR Camera Question / DSLR Thread 2
- Thread starter gar1013
- Start date
Haha maybe when i get some money...
TylerW
Well-known member
Kid tested, model approved.
For being a relative newb to shooting with strobes, and a complete newb to working with a model, I am extremely pleased with my outcomes from yesterday. Here's a few samples:
Please feel free to comment and critique on these, as I would love to learn more about this stuff. If you attended this shoot, or intended to, please PM me and I will send you the url / password to the full gallery.
Thanks for looking, and to Ian, thank you so much for hosting/arranging this!
(mods, if you feel that any of these are inappropriate, let me know, I would be happy to link or remove any offending images)
For being a relative newb to shooting with strobes, and a complete newb to working with a model, I am extremely pleased with my outcomes from yesterday. Here's a few samples:
Please feel free to comment and critique on these, as I would love to learn more about this stuff. If you attended this shoot, or intended to, please PM me and I will send you the url / password to the full gallery.
Thanks for looking, and to Ian, thank you so much for hosting/arranging this!
(mods, if you feel that any of these are inappropriate, let me know, I would be happy to link or remove any offending images)
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tyler, your shots arent coming up for me
TylerW
Well-known member
There she is!
(mussed up my private gallery settings)
(mussed up my private gallery settings)
VeloceMoto
New member
This is my chance to show you a super sexy shot of my Specialized Langster and to plug it. If you've got a mint-condition Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 II EX DG APO Macro HSM AF with a Nikon mount, I'll trade you! Of course, I will take cash too, but this is a photo thread after all. I'm moving out of state/country and I can't take anything. That lens is much easier to transport. 
Joebar4000
New member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2002
- Location
- Los Gatos hills
- Moto(s)
- Anything I can get my hands on for now
- Name
- Ian
Steve! Thanks man, downloaded, will send to Shannon (gal who rescued Olivia).
Tyler - GREAT shots! Much better than mine 
I seem to be able to 'get there' eventually, but don't have nearly your experience for being good 'right off the bat'.
I did 800 shots with Danni yesterday (I'm fucking TIRED!) and the first 100 are really 'meh', but then they really come alive. Kinda tapers off a bit at the end as we both got tired I reckon, but still a coupla jems. Some don't require PP at all, so quite happy with that. Will post up when I get approval.
I'll try to post up my Ana pics on Photobucket or something, and welcome crits, even tho I know they ain't that great.
Also did a shoot with Michael - first nude male shoot. Man, TOTALLY different lighting requirements. Lighting as soft as I use for gals, looks horrid. Harsher shadows and his low bodyfat make for some great back pics. I'll post up a link, we tried to do the 'Hemispheres' naked man pose from the Rush album, came out not-quite-there, but still cool.
Tyler - GREAT shots! Much better than mine
I seem to be able to 'get there' eventually, but don't have nearly your experience for being good 'right off the bat'.
I did 800 shots with Danni yesterday (I'm fucking TIRED!) and the first 100 are really 'meh', but then they really come alive. Kinda tapers off a bit at the end as we both got tired I reckon, but still a coupla jems. Some don't require PP at all, so quite happy with that. Will post up when I get approval.
I'll try to post up my Ana pics on Photobucket or something, and welcome crits, even tho I know they ain't that great.
Also did a shoot with Michael - first nude male shoot. Man, TOTALLY different lighting requirements. Lighting as soft as I use for gals, looks horrid. Harsher shadows and his low bodyfat make for some great back pics. I'll post up a link, we tried to do the 'Hemispheres' naked man pose from the Rush album, came out not-quite-there, but still cool.
Joebar4000
New member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2002
- Location
- Los Gatos hills
- Moto(s)
- Anything I can get my hands on for now
- Name
- Ian
Anyone seen a Canon 52mm lens cap?
No biggie, but I think it's possible it got picked up by mistake...
No biggie, but I think it's possible it got picked up by mistake...
Joebar4000
New member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2002
- Location
- Los Gatos hills
- Moto(s)
- Anything I can get my hands on for now
- Name
- Ian
I'll try to get permission from Ana on the rest soon. She only liked 2 of mine *sigh*. Oh well, there's always next time.
Anyway - FLASH ISSUE.
I think it's the default sync time for most camera's that was the issue - looking back through my manual, default sync time is 1/200th. Which explains why a lot of people were seeing the second curtain pulling across the frame with shorter exposures than that. I thought it might just be my slow-ass remote (still might be).
The annoying thing is, there doesn't appear to be any way to change it, except in the Auto modes (at least on my lowly Canon XT).
NICK! Any ideas? It was/is annoying as fuck - most of us were stuck at F9 at the lowest, using dim glass, and the flashes on minimum. Hard to get backdrop separation, to say the least.
EDIT - bollox. It might be that as shutter speed increases, 1/200th is simply the fastest shutter speed where both curtains are open full-frame. Agh!
Might be time to go get an ND filter after all... shit, I normally have too LITTLE light...
Anyway - FLASH ISSUE.
I think it's the default sync time for most camera's that was the issue - looking back through my manual, default sync time is 1/200th. Which explains why a lot of people were seeing the second curtain pulling across the frame with shorter exposures than that. I thought it might just be my slow-ass remote (still might be).
The annoying thing is, there doesn't appear to be any way to change it, except in the Auto modes (at least on my lowly Canon XT).
NICK! Any ideas? It was/is annoying as fuck - most of us were stuck at F9 at the lowest, using dim glass, and the flashes on minimum. Hard to get backdrop separation, to say the least.
EDIT - bollox. It might be that as shutter speed increases, 1/200th is simply the fastest shutter speed where both curtains are open full-frame. Agh!
Might be time to go get an ND filter after all... shit, I normally have too LITTLE light...
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Yea I was going to suggest the ND filter. My 2 stop one would bring you down closer to f/4 if you were at f/8
Cycle61
What the shit is this...
Slightly confused here….Are you using continuous lights mixed with flashes, and what kind of ISO’s are you shooting at? Most cameras will sync at 1/250th or 1/200th, which should be fast enough to nearly eliminate any continuous light sources other than the sun at ISO 100/200 and f/8. It seems that if your flashes were on minimum power, you probably had the ISO cranked up. I tend to use power levels of ¼ to ½ or so at lower ISO’s and moderate apertures. Remember too, that shutter speed has no impact on your flash power. Flash duration is in the 1/10000th range, and as long as your shutter curtain is fully open you’ll get the full pop.
So I’m pretty unclear on the ambient light level in the room, and what your light source(s) were. Generally indoors 1/200th -1/250th will completely kill your ambient, leaving you free to adjust aperture and flash power as desired for artistic effect.
The only guess I’ve got is you were using higher ISO’s to bring up your continuous lights, and then having to dial down your flash and aperture to compensate. But that doesn’t completely make sense either.
Let me know.
Edit: some remotes will limit you to slower sync speeds, especially if the batteries are low. PocketWizards sync up to 1/500th if the camera supports it, but they’re not cheap.
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Joebar4000
New member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2002
- Location
- Los Gatos hills
- Moto(s)
- Anything I can get my hands on for now
- Name
- Ian
Conditions were, no ambient light (to speak of), I think everyone was shooting at 100ASA, 200th second, and that still forced apertures in the F9 range. Anything bigger was way overdone.
And that was flashes set at or near minimum...
So, there's room to play with exposure of the model, but F9 doesn't give nearly a short enough depth of field to detach the backdrop properly.
Hope that makes more sense.
Most of the issue is size of the 'studio', tho I like having the brollies up close to give a broad light source.
Maybe I need to get some REALLY big brollies... hmm...
And that was flashes set at or near minimum...
So, there's room to play with exposure of the model, but F9 doesn't give nearly a short enough depth of field to detach the backdrop properly.
Hope that makes more sense.
Most of the issue is size of the 'studio', tho I like having the brollies up close to give a broad light source.
Maybe I need to get some REALLY big brollies... hmm...
wannabe
"Insignificant Other"
Yeah, I'm confused too. Here are some of my questions:
1. Same as above: Were you using strobes or continuous lights?
2. If strobes, what were you using to trigger the strobes?
3. How many strobes were you using?
4. Did you manually set each strobe? If so, what power setting did you use for each of them?
5. How did you come upon your camera settings? Did you use a light meter, or did you use the camera in aperature priority to get your ambient baseline?
Sorry if some of these questions sound really basic, but I don't know how far along your lighting knowledge is, so I just wanted to cover all the bases to make sure we didn't skip anything.
1. Same as above: Were you using strobes or continuous lights?
2. If strobes, what were you using to trigger the strobes?
3. How many strobes were you using?
4. Did you manually set each strobe? If so, what power setting did you use for each of them?
5. How did you come upon your camera settings? Did you use a light meter, or did you use the camera in aperature priority to get your ambient baseline?
Sorry if some of these questions sound really basic, but I don't know how far along your lighting knowledge is, so I just wanted to cover all the bases to make sure we didn't skip anything.
Joebar4000
New member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2002
- Location
- Los Gatos hills
- Moto(s)
- Anything I can get my hands on for now
- Name
- Ian
1. Same as above: Were you using strobes or continuous lights?
Strobes.
2. If strobes, what were you using to trigger the strobes?
1 wireless remote, the rest were slaved.
3. How many strobes were you using?
3 or 4: 2x adjustable strobes with 46" brollies set on minimum, 1x 45w/s non-adjustable bounced off the wall/ceiling, 1x 45w/s with barndoors as a hairlight.
4. Did you manually set each strobe? If so, what power setting did you use for each of them?
See above...
5. How did you come upon your camera settings? Did you use a light meter, or did you use the camera in aperature priority to get your ambient baseline?
Take pic, look at histogram and preview...
Getting the correct exposure was easy enough. Getting things so we could use a bigger aperture was the issue. Even with just 1 strobe on minimum, we are pretty much all bottoming out around F9. Anything wider and skin was blown out.
Strobes.
2. If strobes, what were you using to trigger the strobes?
1 wireless remote, the rest were slaved.
3. How many strobes were you using?
3 or 4: 2x adjustable strobes with 46" brollies set on minimum, 1x 45w/s non-adjustable bounced off the wall/ceiling, 1x 45w/s with barndoors as a hairlight.
4. Did you manually set each strobe? If so, what power setting did you use for each of them?
See above...
5. How did you come upon your camera settings? Did you use a light meter, or did you use the camera in aperature priority to get your ambient baseline?
Take pic, look at histogram and preview...
Getting the correct exposure was easy enough. Getting things so we could use a bigger aperture was the issue. Even with just 1 strobe on minimum, we are pretty much all bottoming out around F9. Anything wider and skin was blown out.
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wannabe
"Insignificant Other"
That's really odd. It's not totally clear still. My studio flow is something like this:
1. Take base exposure in Aperature priority mode with the specific aperture that I want to use. This will give me the baseline ambient setting.
2. Go to manual mode and input settings that were given to me in Aperature mode.
3. Go down a couple stops on exposure and add lights one at a time. I do this deliberately to make sure that I can see what each light does to the picture.
4. From there, it's just a matter of methodically stepping down in exposure and adding lights to taste.
Note that I pick a camera setting and adjust the power in the strobes to give me what I want in the picture. I don't adjust the camera settings to compensate for the strobe settings.
If your room was small you had too many strobes set, you could have removed one or more of the strobes to get what you wanted. White walls work well as reflectors.
More questions for you:
1. What is your definition of 'minimum' setting on your strobe? Minimum is different on every strobe.
2. What kind of strobes are you using? 45 w/s is what percentage of full power?
1. Take base exposure in Aperature priority mode with the specific aperture that I want to use. This will give me the baseline ambient setting.
2. Go to manual mode and input settings that were given to me in Aperature mode.
3. Go down a couple stops on exposure and add lights one at a time. I do this deliberately to make sure that I can see what each light does to the picture.
4. From there, it's just a matter of methodically stepping down in exposure and adding lights to taste.
Note that I pick a camera setting and adjust the power in the strobes to give me what I want in the picture. I don't adjust the camera settings to compensate for the strobe settings.
If your room was small you had too many strobes set, you could have removed one or more of the strobes to get what you wanted. White walls work well as reflectors.
More questions for you:
1. What is your definition of 'minimum' setting on your strobe? Minimum is different on every strobe.
2. What kind of strobes are you using? 45 w/s is what percentage of full power?
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Cycle61
What the shit is this...
Seriously. I've never really had that kind of issue, even with strobes up really close, at low ISO values. If you want to shoot at f/2.8, then by all means turn the strobe around and use the whole far wall as a reflector, but I've got about the same questions as below:
I'm assuming, since you're speaking in w/s, that we're talking about studio strobes here and not speedlights (regular flashes). Your power levels may be significantly higher than I'm used to, but 45 w/s really isn't very much. The cheap AB's start at 400 w/s, after all.
Another option if you want a large, close light source...diffuse it more. Hang a white sheet in front of your umbrella, or just drape it over the top of a pair of them.
And when you can't get background separation via DOF, get it through lighting. Light the model separately from the BG. Umbrellas, unfortunately, make this much more difficult to do, as they throw light absolutely everywhere. I like doing a reverse gradient, where the subject is brighter than the BG on one side, and the BG is brighter on the other side, but it's damn near impossible to do with umbrellas.
wannabe
"Insignificant Other"
This is the phrase what makes me think that you went the opposite of how I do it. It sounds like you set the strobes then tried to adjust the aperture according to what the strobes were giving you. It should have been the other way around.
what I noticed is if we shot at 1/250 or faster, there would be a black strip of light where it's like the flash hadn't reached yet. The faster the shutter, the less area the flash was lighting the subject.
wannabe
"Insignificant Other"
You need to read the manual for your camera. The max sync speed for each camera is different. Most of the higher end cameras max out at 1/250th while others max out at 1/200th, and some max out even lower.
If you go above the max sync speed of your particular camera, you will get the black strip of light that you describe.
edit: for example, the max flash sync speed for Joebar's XT and my XTi is 1/200th of a second. And, as Cycle 61 mentioned, there is rarely a need to go much faster than that especially in a studio environment. The only time I shoot that fast in a studio is when I want to black out the ambient light then just add strobes to light the subject as necessary.
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