Continuous Lighting

[droyz2000]

I do not have my own light kit so I have had to use some lighting that my college owns. They only have continuous light which can be uneven and are not bright (having to shoot around f/4.5 1/10sec at 200 ISO). Often when I try to take pictures of little children, they like to wiggle around and the pictures come out blurry. My question is, if I get strobe lighting such as the medium powered Alienbees, what could I expect to have my camera settings set at? Am I going to be able to capture children even when they wiggle?

 

[Johnboy2978]

you can expect a shutter speed of 1/180 or more depending on your camera's sync speed. I generally set mine at f/8 and 1/180 and I generally don't have the power on my 800 bee more than about a 1/4. They do a good job. And yes, it will eliminate motion blur.

 

[Flash Harry]

shutter speed is irrelevant, flash duration is short and its the flash that captures the image, I have an old bronica that syncs at 1/40 shutter speed and the portraits taken with this are spot on, continuous lighting is ok for inanimate objects but pretty useless for people, especially those that can't sit still (ie:kids) get the bees and a light meter, your stuff will be fine.

 

[Garbz]

Yes continuous lighting made for portraits often tend to cook the models.

 

[Mike_E]

Use both. Use the hot lights to bring up the ambient light to what ever it will go to and then use your flash to bring the exposure up the rest of the way. Just make sure to have the flash off the camera. Just see strobist.com if you don't know how. (if your flash is strong enough to not need the help from the hot lights then don't use them at all ) mike

 

[droyz2000]

You are right Garbz, I often have to take breaks while shooting portraits because of how hot the room gets and how hot the people I am shooting get. Which makes the shoot a lot more miserable than it has to be.