A simple lighting question-

[KmH]

IIRC, Alien Bee flash duration gets longer as power is decreased, where as most other strobe lights deliver shorter flash duration as light power is reduced.

What is B1200 flash duration at full power? 1/600?

 

[unpopular]

^^ that's weird. I wonder what mechanism would cause that?

 

[KmH]

AB's are about the only lights I know of that are that way.

Here are some specs - Paul C. Buff - AlienBees B800

 

[unpopular]

Nevermind. Misread the chart.

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Yeah, that is strange. Maybe they are adjusting duration to compensate for inverse non-linear power output? But man, that sure seems like it'd be an expensive way to go about it. I'm not even 100% sure how you'd do that. I always kind of envisioned the tube discharge as a freefall.

 

[ewick]

Thank you everybody for your input. maybe I totally botched that question. Maybe nobody will read this thread from here on end but this is what I was kinda going for, but I know this was not a great image. I was trying to figure out how to get ambient light with my one AB1600.

[/URL] soccer girl by pop-a-dot, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Village Idiot]

You can do a longer exposure, but in my opinion it's best to do a composite so you don't risk movement from the subject due to ambient bleed. Do one longer exposed shot of everything but the subject on the tripod and do one flash shot of the subject on the tripod. Put them together in post. Done.

That'll give you over all better image quality rather than shooting at a slow enough shutter speed that would introduce blur from camera shake and a higher ISO which can degrade image quality due to noise based on how well your camera handles the noise and how high of an ISO you're shooting at.

 

[ewick]

You can do a longer exposure, but in my opinion it's best to do a composite so you don't risk movement from the subject due to ambient bleed. Do one longer exposed shot of everything but the subject on the tripod and do one flash shot of the subject on the tripod. Put them together in post. Done.

That'll give you over all better image quality rather than shooting at a slow enough shutter speed that would introduce blur from camera shake and a higher ISO which can degrade image quality due to noise based on how well your camera handles the noise and how high of an ISO you're shooting at.

Makes perfect sense. Thank you.