My Continuos Lighting System

[RawRyder]

i had a BIG BIG BIG problem

am stuck i don't know what to do, thats why am writing to get help

i bought a continuos light with 4 lights 2 with soft box (i have a thid one i didn't use) with 2 strobes (i think that what it called) one with an umberella.

the problem starts when i want to shot with my D200 camera, i tried all the setting it keeps giving me not a correct color or very dark or blurred image.

what i have to do ???

what is the best setting to use?

shooting mode?
WB??
ISO?
Bracketing??
aperture?
shutter speed?
using the flash camera or no need?
closing the room light or i keep it open??

and what is the best program to connect my camera with my macbook pro to watch what am shooting?

this is my lighting system
http://www.skaeser.com/servlet/the-662/4-LIGHT-3500-WATT/Detail

thanks

 

[Sherman Banks]

What settings are you using and do you have any examples.

PS: Lose the 20pt font too.

 

[RawRyder]

you need example of the photo i took ?

they are BAD

 

[adamwilliamking]

and what is the best program to connect my camera with my macbook pro to watch what am shooting?

Camera Control Pro 2


as for the problem, I'm not sure exactly what you are going for. The white balance is the only big problem I see in the first picture. The second picture is just underexposed. Are they strobes or continuous lights? They can't be both.

 

[Sherman Banks]

As Adam said, the white balance is definitely off. Try setting it to your presets (flash, cloudy) and if they don't look right, manually adjust the degrees until you get the look you want. Since your lighting is continuous and probably never going to leave the house, just make note of the degree setting so you can go back to it when you're using them.

As for the underexposure, I'm guessing you can't get more light out of your kit, so just bump up the exposure in the camera. Shoot RAW if you have the capability to edit afterwards and correct exposure/WB issues as well.

 

[musicaleCA]

Or use a grey card and custom WB in post. Much easier and faster than messing with camera settings, in my opinion.

The second looks like it was taken with a hard light. Get that light in close. You have softboxes, so use them and put them as close as you can to the subject (without putting them in the frame) to soften the light. That'll get rid of the hard shadows.

 

[Sherman Banks]

Just saw you linked to your kit, did you really spend $800 on that?

 

[RawRyder]

yeah i spend about 700 dollar it was on discount and guess what the shipping cost me 300 dollar

i was stupid to choose the continuos light, but you know before i bought it, i went to many forums to ask them what to buy and most of them told me go to the continuos.
i think i will sell them but am afraid in my country no one will by them as am in KUWAIT.

i checked the light watt the 2 soft box the bulb is 300 watt and the barndoor is 50 watt. thats funny i think the problem from my bulb right, don't laugh at me because when i received them the bulb explode because kuwait volt is 250. so my dad bought me this bulb. i hope the problem from the bulb so i will not sale my lighting. my dad maybe afraid that if he bought me more than 300 watt it will explode or make fire.

ok now what is the best watt to buy for my light f the problem comes from the watt?

 

[RawRyder]

help

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Don't use the pop up flash, that's not why you bought lights, continuous or not. Your flash is 5000K anyway, so it will look like garbage when mixed with 3200K lights.

On the site they say they're 3200K. So set your cameras WB to 3200K. If that's still not perfect, take a custom WB off a gray card. Your manual will explain how to do that.

Shoot RAW so you can tweak the color later without being destructive.

Keep them at full power so you don't have to shoot at ISO 800 or 1600, and turn off the room lights, they're most likely a different color temp and will throw everything off. You might also want to periodically shoot a gray card because since these are continuous lights, they practically microwave the subjects and i wouldn't be surprised if the color shifts when they get hotter.



Actually, see if you can return it and get yourself an inexpensive Novatron or Alienbee kit or something along those lines, even a speedlight kit from B&H.

Continuous lights, unless they're something like Kino Flo's are garbage for still photography unless you're looking into long exposure special effects IMO and I feel bad for anyone who gets suckered into buying cheap continuous imitations.