just bought a lighting kit.

[peanut170]

Was super excited, set it all up bought a large piece of fabric from the fabric store for a background set it all up put my son in there and metered through the lens and its telling me i have to be like f/2.8 at 1/80. there is 2, 500 watt bulbs, continuous lighting, and is quite bright. Why am i still having trouble? The pics look good, but shouldnt i be able to get up to f/8, f/11, with still a high shutter speed.

 

[786soul]

Remember to watch your metering modes. I havent done much work with studio types of lighting setups but if you're going for the whole isolated white kind of look, meter ONLY the subject and overpower the background with +2 stops. That's a tip I picked up from some youtube tutorials but it works well even with product photography.

Put the camera on spot metering and try again from there, see if you get a better result.

 

[KmH]

Was super excited, set it all up bought a large piece of fabric from the fabric store for a background set it all up put my son in there and metered through the lens and its telling me i have to be like f/2.8 at 1/80. there is 2, 500 watt bulbs, continuous lighting, and is quite bright. Why am i still having trouble? The pics look good, but shouldnt i be able to get up to f/8, f/11, with still a high shutter speed.

1. The camera doesn't work like your eyes do. Cameras are linear, our eyes aren't.
2. Continuous lights forgo several advantages strobed (flash) lighting give. Mainly the opportunity to control 2 exposures in a single photo.
3. What ISO was your camera set to?
4. What color is your fabric background, and how far away from it are you placing your son?

 

[peanut170]

Remember to watch your metering modes. I havent done much work with studio types of lighting setups but if you're going for the whole isolated white kind of look, meter ONLY the subject and overpower the background with +2 stops. That's a tip I picked up from some youtube tutorials but it works well even with product photography.

Put the camera on spot metering and try again from there, see if you get a better result.

I tried sppot metering, i think, best i know how, and didnt make much of a difference.

Was super excited, set it all up bought a large piece of fabric from the fabric store for a background set it all up put my son in there and metered through the lens and its telling me i have to be like f/2.8 at 1/80. there is 2, 500 watt bulbs, continuous lighting, and is quite bright. Why am i still having trouble? The pics look good, but shouldnt i be able to get up to f/8, f/11, with still a high shutter speed.

1. The camera doesn't work like your eyes do. Cameras are linear, our eyes aren't.
2. Continuous lights forgo several advantages strobed (flash) lighting give. Mainly the opportunity to control 2 exposures in a single photo.
3. What ISO was your camera set to?
4. What color is your fabric background, and how far away from it are you placing your son?

I raised the iso to 250, f/4.5 1/100 and the histogram is ahowing its all the way to the left. The background is black, and the lightd sre 4-5 feet from my son. maybe im just looking at the histogram and its showing too dark cuz its black, is that whats going on?

 

[KmH]

Yes, with a black background you would expect most of the pixels to be to the left of the histogram.

A histogram does not necessarily show if a shot is under exposed or over exposed. It shows the distribution of the pixels, by lumunosity, in that image.

Understanding Digital Camera Histograms: Tones and Contrast

 

[peanut170]

Thanks, i appreciate the help.

 

[gsgary]

When i use continuos lighting i will be at iso200-400 but that is using an Arri lights
Creative Video Arri Redhead 3 head lighting kit with case