Lighting mare

[kirif1]

Hi guys,

So I havnt posted for a while then with my dilema last night remembered that you guys were awesome! so the problem is, I am shooting an internal fashion magazine for a fashion company and since it's within an office, the lighting is tricky. Now i have portable studio lights. One constant with a soft box and two which are triggered from my SB700. I find that when the flash gun fires in one direction everything is too bright but in any other direction....dark! I have the setting on TTL. I fiddled with the exposure stops both on the camera and flash, cranked up the fnumber (shooting in M) and with the power on the lights themseves.

With a plain white background, surely the flash gun shouldnt have THAT much effect on the exposure of the picture...what I am I missing here?

Thank you!!

 

[kirif1]

I should mention that my shutter was at 250 and ended up cranking my f number all the way up to f24! and of course my ISO was at it's lowest

 

[runnah]

Are you using bare flashes. i.e. no soft boxes?

If it were me I'd use one flash and fire that through the soft box and have a reflector on the opposite side to cast extra light.

Keep your shutter at 125 or 60 and your aperture around 7.1 plus or minus a few stops. Then putting your flash into manual, use that to adjust accordingly.

If you are looking for a true white BG have your second flash behind the model and have it fire at around 1/8 power back towards the backdrop.

 

[tirediron]

Step 1: Lose the continuous light. Mixing continuous and strobe is just a PAIN in the sitmedownupon!

Step 2: Switch your speedlights from TTL to manual. Manual flash is MUCH easier to use and control, and will give much better results than TTL flash in 99.9% of cases, ESPECIALLY when using multiple lights.

Step 3: Get some modifiers; Lastolite's Ezyboxes produce beautiful light with speedlights and a couple of big reflectors.

Step 4: Head over here and start reading about OCF.

 

[hirejn]

You're missing correct metering of light and understanding of flash exposure. It will take more than some forum posts to learn it. With hand-held metering it doesn't matter what color the bg is. You're metering for the light itself, not what's reflected.

 

[pjwarneka]

I have not been on this forum long enough...

For the old timers, is this a serious post?

 

[Derrel]

"cranking my f number all the way up to f24!"

Ummmm, f/24 is a very,very small f/stop. Unless it is brighter than the sun on a summer's day, the constant light in the softbox, at f/24 and 1/250 second is going to UNDER-expose the daylights out of whatever it's aimed at...constant light needs TIME to register on the sensor....and at 1/250 there's not much time allotted...FLASH on the other hand, is very brief, and can register its full charge of light at a wide range of speeds. If you want the continuous light to "show up", you will need to slow the shutter wayyyyyyyyy down, to perhaps 1/20 second or so, maybe 1/15 second, and also open the lens aperture to a larger opening, like say f/5.6.

This is my reading of the situation, based on what limited information (and no pictures....) has been provided.

 

[runnah]

I have not been on this forum long enough...

For the old timers, is this a serious post?

Sadly I think so...

 

[pjwarneka]

[/QUOTE]

Sadly I think so...[/QUOTE]

Great googlie mooglie.....

 

[Mike_E]

F24? How'd you manage that?

Honestly, I've yet to meet a horse (mare) that cared.

If you can't borrow a flashmeter then tether and measure off of the cheek closest to the strobe. After you've burned and buried the continuous lighting. Really.

Seriously though, ditch the continuous lighting. Then either buy/borrow a flashmeter or note the guide number (remembering to add in the ambient) and do the math for f stop and distance.

Give the excitement of being paid a rest and slow down and do your thing by the numbers.