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There's an HDR thread, there's a business thread, but there appeared to be no lighting thread. I've never been good at wall of text OPs, but I'll give it a shot anyways. I'll be focusing more on continuous, hot-shoe flash and studio strobe lights, as I have limited experience with complex setups using available light. As always, ask questions, we have plenty of people here who are better at this than I am who can answer them for you. Introduction The purpose, generally, of using artificial lighting in photography is to either provide all the light necessary for a proper exposure, or supplement the existing (available) light to get a proper exposure. Additionally, the light is used as a creative element in the photograph, to define the subject and create mood. How to use your lights artistically is beyond the scope of this, and in the end is something you really have to learn for yourself. The best way to start doing this is to look at picture you like - if you sit down and think about it for a few minutes, you can usually get a rough idea of the lighting setup. With a little more thought, you can sometimes work out exactly what the photographer did. Stop by the Photo A Day thread, and if you see something you like, you can always ask how it was done. One thing to consider is color temperature - essentially, what color "white" is. You can see this looking at any high rise building - the difference in the color of light coming from apartments that have incandescent bulbs, fluorescent, etc. Your camera needs to know what color white currently is, using the camera's white balance setting, That, too, is beyond the scope of this post, but it's something to bear in mind. Types of Lights There are two basic types of lights you're likely to use - continuous lights and strobes. Continuous lights are the kind you have in your house - they have an incandescent or fluorescent bulb, some kind of housing, and they emit light constantly. Incandescent lights are sometimes referred to as "hot" lights. Their color temperature depends on the type of bulb used. These lights can range anywhere from a desk lamp that you use to add some light to some lego men you posed on your desk to medium-sized panels of compact fluorescent tubes to multi-thousand-watt studio units. As you would expect, when you ramp up the wattage, you get a great deal more heat. Pros: What you see is exactly what you get - apart from proper exposure, the camera sees what you see. Continuous lights are also quite often cheaper - in its most basic form it's just a socket and a bulb. Even adding reflectors and other light mods, they're still not that much. You can use your camera's meter, since the light doesn't change for the actual exposure. Cons: On reasonable scales, light output can't compete with a strobe. They generate a lot of heat for the amount of light they output, even at relatively low wattages. Color temperature can vary with wattage, bulb type, etc. The bulbs need to be replaced a whole lot more than strobe tubes do. You typically need 120V power. Strobes are the other kind of light you're likely to use, and are what most people use. At this point I'm lumping in hot-shoe flashes with studio units. The built-in flash on your point & shoot is the low end of this, through hot-shoe flashes that mount on your DSLR, up to several-thousand-watt-second studio strobes with massive power packs. These lights work on the principle that you don't need light all the time, you only need it for the split-second when the camera's shutter is open. When your strobe fires, a trigger pulse is applied to an electrode on a glass tube full of xenon gas, ionizing it, causing the power from a high-voltage capacitor to flow through it, producing light. This entire process takes around a millisecond, give or take. Since all the power is released in a short period of time, and due to the higher efficiency, you can get pretty hilarious amounts of light out of even a small battery-powered strobe. Enough light that a 285HV, which is powered by four AA batteries, can set things on fire if they're too close (<1") to it (I have a singed pair of black socks to prove it). While color temperature can vary based on a few factors, most strobes are 'daylight balanced' to somewhere around 5600K. Pros: Huge light output even for battery-powered units, compared to hot lights. Battery-powered strobes are small and portable. Typically, not much heat is generated during normal use. Can be used to freeze motion. Pretty consistent color temperature between units. Cons: You can't see what the light looks like until it fires (typically). Recycle times (recharging the capacitor) can be long for battery-powered units. The camera's meter can't be used, unless you're using a TTL hotshoe flash. Types of Strobes Built-in/pop-up flashes are what you probably have on your camera already. They have tiny flashtubes which are pushed harder than they probably should be. The advantage is that it's right there on your camera. That's really all it has going for it. Since it's hitting the subject head-on, light from these typically looks very flat and boring. There are no shadows, and it's all very two-dimensional. You should try to avoid using this. Pop-up flashes have found some use in controlling remote flashes, via systems like Nikon's CLS. They can also be used at very low power to trigger optically slaved strobes, but there are much better ways. Hot-shoe flashes are the next step up. These are typically battery-powered and mount on the hotshoe on the top of the camera. The camera triggers them via contacts in the shoe. They have larger but still pretty small flash tubes. They can output a pretty respectable amount of light, and depending on the flash, lighting a subject fifty feet away wouldn't be a stretch. Some of these have flash heads that can swivel and tilt, and have a zoom function so the spread of light coming out of the flash roughly matches the coverage of your lens. These flashes can also be removed from the camera and placed elsewhere for more complex lighting setups, triggered optically or via radio triggers. Examples of this are the Vivitar 285HV, Nikon SB-600, Canon 430EX, Olympus FL36, and others. Studio strobes are the next step up. They have the largest flash tubes, and are typically not battery-powered. Some units are self-contained, and some have external power packs. They offer huge light output, and arguably better-looking light due to their larger circular flash tube. Many also feature incandescent modelling lights, which allow you to see how light falls on your subject, although they cannot be used to determine exposure. While also the most expensive option, you can still get an entry-level strobe for a couple hundred dollars, which ain't much for photography gear. Examples of studio strobes are the Alien Bees / White Lightning units, Profoto, Elinchrom, Bowers, and others. What you need for off-camera flash use Well, you need a flash. You can get a small hotshoe flash for $20, and a cheap one is fine as long as it has a manual power mode. The Vivitar 285HV is around $80, and isn't bad for the price. You can get started with an Alien Bees AB400 for around $200, if you want something bigger and better. At the very least, you need a flash, some way to mount it, and some way to trigger it. Lightstands are cheap, can be extended up to ten feet on some models, and are lightweight and compact enough to be easy to transport. On top of your light stand, you need a way to mount your flash. Typically this is something that allows you to attach your flash, tilt it up and down, and attach a light modifier such as umbrella or softbox. What this means to you depends on what kind of flash you have. It can be useful to purchase starter kits that include everything you need, or visit a local photography store and find what you need. You also need a way to tell your flash to fire. You can do this either with wires or wirelessly. The more pro cameras and flashes have what's called a PC socket, which is a small round connector that lets you use a cable to attach your camera to the flash, so the camera can tell it to fire. If your camera and/or flash doesn't have this, you can purchase hotshoe-PC adapters inexpensively. The cheapest wireless option is using an optical slave - your main flash fires, and a sensor attached to the other flash detects that and fires the other flash. This can be helpful in multi-light setups, and many studio strobes have built-in optical slaves. The last option is to wirelessly trigger the flashes with radio triggers. A transmitter sits on your camera, the receiver's attached to the flash, and the camera fires the flash with a radio signal. This can range from inexpensive but unreliable "eBay triggers" (typically Cactus V2), to expensive but rock-solid Pocket Wizard triggers. If cost is an issue, you can always use a radio trigger on your main light and an optical slave on your other lights. Light Modifiers There are any number of things you can put in front of your flash to change how the light comes out and what it looks like. Umbrellas and softboxes both serve to diffuse the light, making it softer. These mount on your light stand, and your flash fires into them. Umbrellas are cheap, portable, and effective, and provide very soft diffuse light. Softboxes cost a little more and are a bit bulkier, and provide light that is soft but still somewhat directional. You can also get small diffusers that slide over the end of your hot-shoe flash, Sto-Fen Omnibounces are popular brand. A company called LumiQuest also sells tiny little softbox-looking things that attach to hotshoe flashes using velcro. At the other end of the spectrum are massive studio softboxes, like the Octabank. There are also times when you want to restrict the output of the flash, and for this you might use snoots or grids. A snoot is a tube-shaped attachment that goes on the front of the flash and serves to narrow the output into a smaller area. You can buy them for not too much money, or you can make your own with some heavy paper or cardboard. A grid is a honeycomb-looking thing that goes on the front of the flash and narrows the flash output even further, to a very narrow round beam of light. A grid is something you might use if you wanted to light only someone's face and not the rest of their body. While not strictly a light modifier, bouncing flash is extremely effective too for softening and diffusing light. In a normal room with a white, low ceiling, bouncing a hot-shoe flash off the ceiling makes the light very diffuse and omnidirectional, giving a similar appearance to having a ceiling light right above your camera. You can also buy fold-up reflective panels in various sizes, most being double-sided, offering white or silver for bouncing and gold for warming the light up a little. You can use these to reflect spilled light from your main light into fill light for areas your flash doesn't hit, or to reflect available light into somewhere you need a little extra. You can also change the color of your flash by putting sheets of colored plastic called 'gels' in front of them. There are hundreds to choose from, Rosco being a common brand. You can get free sample books at most theatrical lighting stores. Really, no huge wall of text can tell you how to light something, because it's different for every subject and personal style. People seem to have a lot of lighting questions, so ask away. THIS IS THE LAND OF EDITS Edit 1: Selecting dedicated hot-shoe flashes. I've seen too many people (any is too many) consider buying an SB-400 recently. Now, for most brands (all I can think of, actually), at the bottom of the line is a terrible flash, then a decent flash or two, then their flagship. You can tell which one is the lower end because it looks nothing like the rest of them - or any other well-designed flash. The terrible flash is tempting, being $70-100 cheaper than the one above it. Do not buy it. It is, in the case of the SB400, pretty much just a pop-up flash that has a halfassed bounce head. It fills the needs of some people (hi ken), but if you clicked on a thread called "The Photographic Lighting Thread", you are not one of those people. Do yourself a favor and save up for an extra week. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at Dec 16, 2008 around 19:19 |
| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 03:50 |
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| # ¿ May 21, 2013 00:48 |
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ConfusedUs posted:I'd like to add that, as a studio portrait photographer, hot lights loving suck. Way, way too much heat. It's not too bad if you're doing a single session lasting 15-20 minutes and that's it, but if you're running all day, every day, like we do in my studio at this time of year, it gets way too hot, even with multiple fans running. As an aside, if someone wants to gently caress around with hot lights, get some cheap lovely used theatrical lights instead of some overpriced eBay nonsense. You're probably going to end up using strobes anyways, so don't spend too much.
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 03:58 |
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ConfusedUs posted:Does anyone have any experience with the Alien Bees vagabond II power pack? No experience, but I've heard good things too (apart from that one crazy guy who think Paul Buff is trying to kill us all). My AB400 should be here in a couple days, at which point I'll post a trip report here. First on the list: seeing what it will set fire to, and how far it will throw at night.
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 04:26 |
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ConfusedUs posted:Are you getting it with a vagabond? I am not, just a plain ol' AB400 (white). Knowing me, I'll cobble together some kind of portable power system and end up breaking the strobe.
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 04:33 |
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Mannequin posted:
Softboxes diffuse like an umbrella but they're still a bit directional, which sometimes is what you want. I've heard some less-than-good things about the Paul C Buff softboxes, but people do like to whine a lot. Pretty much practice, yeah. Practice with a friend or a houseplant or something. When you're actually shooting someone, that's not really the time to try random poo poo that probably won't work, unless they're cool with that and it's not a serious shoot. That's more the time for things you've tried on your own and you know work. At least that's how I feel. The rosco stuff comes in 20x24" sheets for like six dollars, or huge rolls for a lot. You can get a sample book, which you should, because they have a couple hundred colors and it's really hard to get an idea for what they look like without actually shining your flashlight through them or something. If you really can't find a sample book, shoot me a PM with your address and I'll send you one of the several dozen I have.
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 05:18 |
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I might as well post about this, since I had some trouble understanding it when I first started using off-camera lighting. Only two things influence exposure when your main subject is lit by a flash - ISO and aperture. Aperture because it limits how much light gets to the sensor, and ISO because it changes how sensitive the sensor is. Shutter speed has no effect on exposure for subjects who are lit only (or mainly) by the flash. It sounds weird, but it makes sense. When the flash fires, it emits a certain amount of light in an extremely short time. It emits the same amount of light every time. As long as the shutter is open when the flash fires, it will look the same no matter what shutter speed you use. Shutter speed DOES have an effect on things not lit by the flash of course, so you can vary your shutter speed to control how much the ambient light contributes to exposure (typically of your background), while not changing the exposure of the flash-lit subject. You can use this to turn a white wall black - turn the flash power up, set a small aperture, then crank the shutter speed up until anything not lit by the flash is black. Of course, stay within your camera's sync speed, which is usually 1/200 or 1/250. Since with old manually controlled flashes or off-camera flashes the camera sometimes doesn't know there's a flash involved, it will happily let you go over your sync speed, and it will be pretty terrible. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at Dec 14, 2008 around 12:11 |
| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 10:32 |
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I actually forgot to mention Strobist in the OP, and I was going to. I'd recommend that anyone read it, but bear in mind that it is a blog about LEARNING lighting using small strobes and DIY light mods. There is nothing wrong with ghettoing things up in your basement just to see how they look - I made a grid out of drinking straws just to see what a grid looked like. It's also important to know that while the guy who runs Strobist might be able to get away with showing up to shoots with cereal-box snoots, you probably can't. The DIY poo poo is fine for learning, but when you start needing it to use on shoots, but whatever the pro version is. It's not like snoots and grids are expensive - Honl sells each for like twenty dollars. Brad Industry and I don't really see eye to eye on small strobe use, but I think we can agree that Strobist is not the place to look if you want to know how to set up a studio shoot. The same PRINCIPLES apply, but studio strobes are not just big expensive hotshoe flashes.
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 21:56 |
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TsarAleksi posted:The funny thing is that you can buy an Aliebee monolight for about the same price as a nice Canon or Nikon hotshoe flash. I made this decision not two days ago. Counting shipping and tax, the AB400 came in about $40 less than an SB800. Then I looked at my camera shelf, saw the six hot-shoe flashes, wondered what the hell I was thinking, and ordered an Alien Bee. Now I won't have to make awkward small-talk while my flash is recycling too.
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 22:03 |
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brad industry posted:Yeah it makes no sense to go with hotshoe flashes because of price. I think people just assume smaller = cheaper. I know PLENTY of professionals who use AB's (in fact I know a lot of people who have Profoto packs in their studio and a set of AB's for location) - they are solid lights, inexpensive, great customer service, and they just give you so many more options than small flashes. Small flashes are great for a lot of situations but it's hard to beat the versatility of a monolight. I have no regrets about my small flash use, but drat do you see the limitations pretty quick. From 15 feet away with a grid, I actually had no option other than full power on my 285HV. Even ignoring the recycle times, it feels pretty cramped when you have nowhere to go with flash power. There's no way I'm going to leave the house without a hotshoe flash in my bag, but I see them getting put on hair light duty pretty quick once my AB400 gets here.
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2008 22:57 |
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HPL posted:Okay, here's one for you. I'm actually going in the other direction as you guys and looking for a really small, low-powered flash. Those of you who have been following the other photo threads know that I used a 285HV at 1/16 power with 4 layers of paper over the bulb, so really I'd only need a flash roughly 1/16 to 1/32 the power of a 285HV. It has to be controllable manually since I plan on using it with radio triggers. Ideally, it would be small enough to fit in a coat pocket. The Sunpak RD2000 and PF20XD look like potential candidates. Any thoughts or suggestions? If you're okay with soldering, there's a 285HV mod that gets you down to 1/1024 power. EDIT: Also, the Sunpak 433D is less powerful than the 285HV, and goes down to 1/32. Bottom Liner posted:For modifiers, I'm going to stick with the included umbrella for the time being and experiment with it, then see where to go from there. Again, anything you guys with experience would recommend against this? If you're just starting out, that'll be fine. Also, if the AB400 is what you can afford, get that. While mine hasn't arrived yet, I have used one, and the light output from it is something you can't really fathom if you've only used hotshoe flashes. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at Dec 15, 2008 around 07:28 |
| # ¿ Dec 15, 2008 07:16 |
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evil_bunnY posted:I had to carry bags quite a few years ago (photography internship in high school), and they're a bitch and a half. Tossing a hundred pounds of bagged stands on your back on the other hand is no problem if the bags are padded properly. Speaking of which, I just scored some shady Optex tripod bag for free, and it looks like my light stand and umbrella will fit in it, so score. Plus it appears my AB400 might fit in my EX180 bag, which would be even better. The thing is, I'm going to look like a retard with all this stuff in separate bags. What do you on-location-monolight pros do? Attach bags to other bags? Get an assistant to carry some?
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| # ¿ Dec 15, 2008 22:22 |
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brad industry posted:The big Pelican case in that pic I posted on the last page is a 1650 which holds 3 WL heads, I think it's about ~$100. You could probably fit 3-4 AB heads in it or the Vagabond (which has a strap so it's fairly easy to carry). I clearly need to get a car. I should probably get some kind of medal for hauling my camera bag, light stand, and now AB400 on the bus. Luckily my next shoot is very close to home. Unluckily, it's in the hallway of a college, so I'll probably have all kinds of issues with light bouncing around like a motherfucker. Is it worth buying some black fabric to try to fashion a ghetto flag to put behind me?
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 02:42 |
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baptism of fiber posted:How do people go about setting up/metering a shoot with 1 or more strobes? Do serious/professional flash photographers user TTL-networked flashes? Spot meters? Charts with distances and power settings? Eyeball, test-shot, and adjust? Note that I am not a pro in the sense that I do not make my living off it, so if that's what you want, listen to Brad who does make his living from this. The first shoot I did, I was all over the place. I had no idea what the gently caress. You learn as you go a bit. Now I could probably set up two lights and be within a stop of being correct, but what I typically do is just start with one and work up. I start with the main light, set it to something other than full (I do sound for a living - I like headroom), based on what aperture I'd like to shoot at. This typically takes 1 or 2 test shots to get right. Then I'd add any other lights I was planning to use, squeeze off a few more test shots, and I'm good to go. I do not own a single TTL flash, nor do I plan to purchase one. In the time it would take me to make sure the flash could see the master firing, I could just set power manually and take some test shots.
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 05:19 |
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I think it's time for an example! In the OP, I mentioned bouncing your flash off the ceiling/whatever. It sounds like a pain in the rear end, but really, the results speak for themselves. Both of these shots were with my D200, using a Sunpak 433D (battery-powered hotshoe flash) in thyristor auto mode. I paid $15 for that flash, by the way. My model is asleep, so you get one of her dumb little figurines. First shot: Flash is hitting the subject head-on. Note the ugly shadows and lack of depth in the face.  Second shot: Flash is shooting about 70 degrees, pointing behind and to the right of me, using the ceiling and opposite wall for bounce. Note that you can actually see depth on the face, and it just looks nicer.  So, yeah. Just bounce your flash off something and watch it look less terrible.
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 07:33 |
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Cannister posted:Brad, you've mentioned model lights quite a bit. I can't say I know what the eff that is. Could you help me out with that? If you meant modelling lights, they're incandescent lights that sit right in the middle of the flashtube on strobes, so you can see where the light will fall on your subject and be pretty confident that the flash will look similar. Some hotshoe flashes fake this by strobing the flash for a second. If you meant monolights, they're strobes that plug directly into the wall, as opposed to a pack/head system. EDIT: Yes my name is brad now 
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 18:49 |
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brad industry posted:Really they are only useful in a dark studio - I mostly use mine as indicators for when the heads have recycled (the modeling lights turn off until they ready to fire again). Do you find that the ambient just overwhelms them in most situations? Also, updated to OP for "don't buy an SB-400".
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 19:21 |
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brad industry posted:Cannister, my WL's go down to 1/128 and I don't think I've ever turned them down that low. You can always throw some ND filters on them to decrease the power if you want to do a shallow DOF. Yeah, unlike HPL, I usually hover around 1/4 on my 285HV, and that's typically shooting f/2.8-f/4. I don't see 1/32 on an AB400 being too much power, and that's not even counting the stop or two I'll lose to the umbrella.
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 19:44 |
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Cannister posted:Aha. For some reason I had this concept that monolights (these are monolights, right?) were these super powerful things so 1/32 would be like the equivalent of 1/2 power on a hotshoe (all I know). Yeah, those are monolights, due to not having an external power pack. The power ratings on them can be a bit misleading - of course, they have significantly more power than a hotshoe flash, and can output a bunch more light, but they also have a much larger flash tube to fire. This is also why watt-seconds are actually a terrible way of measuring flash power, since it's not a measure of light output.
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 19:57 |
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notlodar posted:I have noticed that w/s are a good indicator when it comes to background lighting, very dependent on what you are trying to do. If you want, when my AB400 gets here (in a couple hours - drat you UPS), I can get semi-scientific with it and see how many stops brighter it is than my 285HV, both at say 1/4 power and full power. EDIT: This was more of a reply to Cannister, actually.
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 20:54 |
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friendship waffle posted:the problem with guide number is that if you focus a flash or put a reflector on it or direct the light in any way, really, you can cheat by narrowing the angle of view the flash is distributed over. Much like flash manufacturers do, with the ungodly guide number of hotshoe flashes followed by (feet, 105mm).
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| # ¿ Dec 16, 2008 23:32 |
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powderific posted:I'll second everything people have said about the AB modifiers being crappy. After reading a couple good things about their folding boxes on on fredmiranda, I picked up one with an AB800. Folded up, the thing is still HUGE and the thing just feels cheap. Maybe I'm spoiled by the Chimera softboxes my work has leftover from a product photography studio, but the ab box just feels like a piece of poo poo. I wish I'd gone for something else. Ah well, the light that comes out is fine and that's the most important thing for me at the moment. Good to hear from someone who's used their softboxes and has something else to compare it to. Have you had any experience with their grids? If I was going to get anything from them, it would probably be that.
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| # ¿ Dec 17, 2008 08:13 |
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Mannequin posted:Yeah, I had a question about this also. I have a 16" continuous "cool light" that was relatively cheap. It looks like this: 16:29 < Mannequin> Speaking of that, you completely blew off my question in your lighting thread SM. While, as someone mentioned, the daylight balanced CFL aren't too bad, the light output can't hope to compete with a strobe. Maybe if you had a few you could get to like, 1/16 on a hotshoe flash. The lights I use at the theatre I work at are these 20-pound fuckers that take 1000W tungsten-halogen bulbs and have a bunch of lenses and crap, and decent studio strobe can blow them away even at relatively long range. Using a CFL array type thing like that has a couple advantages, but light output is not one of them.
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| # ¿ Dec 18, 2008 00:33 |
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The Fomo posted:I'm pretty much set on picking up a B800 now. Is the ABR800 a good ringflash for the price? Strobist keeps going on and on about the Ray Flash and Orbis, but I am not convinced. I'm set on torching the UPS building if they don't deliver my flash today, which is day 3. The only bad things I've heard about the ABR800 were from people who seemed to hate on pretty much anything PCB makes, so I'm not sure what to take from that. I think the reason Strobist keeps going on about those ones is that anything that runs on more than six volts is an affront to them. Both the Ray Flash and Orbis seem well-designed, and I haven't heard many bad things about them, but it does seem a little gimmicky.
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| # ¿ Dec 18, 2008 18:50 |
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The Fomo posted:Now I just have to decide whether it's worth it to get the Nikon 60mm f2.8 Micro (I plan on making it work double duty as a portrait lens, as its DOF is a hell of a lot better than my 18-200mm) or an ABR800 first. If it were any other lens I'd say to get a flash, but that's a pretty awful lens. Also, Brad's advice about ringlights earlier was very good advice indeed. Also, derailing a bit, look into the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro.
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| # ¿ Dec 18, 2008 23:33 |
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brad industry posted:While we are on this topic, what's the cheapest/most powerful option for a battery powered flash? I want to pick up a couple to use only off-camera with PW's to supplement the strobes I already have. I may be a special snowflake for loving these, but my current favorite is the Sunpak 433D. Bounce and swivel head, 1/1-1/32, non-TTL auto mode, but no PC port. If you look around you can find them for VERY cheap, I got mine for $15 each. They also have an HV plug if you use Quantum batteries. I think they're pretty similar in power, possibly a little less, compared to the 285HV.
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| # ¿ Dec 19, 2008 19:34 |
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brad industry posted:What kind of sync plugs do they have? I need to be able to hook up a PW some way. None, because they're a terrible hotshoe flash. On the other hand, cheap and battery powered. One of mine has an empty hole on the side of it that's the exact right size for a PC plug, so maybe some model of them has one.
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| # ¿ Dec 19, 2008 19:46 |
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brad industry posted:I have a couple of hotshoe->PC adapters laying around so maybe I try one of those Sunpaks. I just want to be able to duct tape a small flash in weird spots. That's pretty much what I use them for - if I want a flash to throw into a mud puddle to get a cool shot, it's going to be the Sunpak. They're also quite a bit smaller and lighter than a 285HV, so I use it on-camera a lot, usually bouncing off the ceiling. e: canon sux
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| # ¿ Dec 19, 2008 20:07 |
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torgeaux posted:Not paying attention here. She shoots canon, so NO, she cannot use the Nikon on camera. He was paying attention actually, the SB26 uses the old Nikon TTL, so using it on a Nikon is the same as on a Canon - the TTL won't work, the rest will. It is still entirely possible to use it on-camera on a Canon. In fact, the flash I use on my D200 usually is a third-party Canon TTL flash (clearly not operating in TTL mode).
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| # ¿ Dec 19, 2008 20:10 |
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torgeaux posted:Yes, also a nice choice. But for her, the 430 and the 580 seem excessive. Even the off brand (sigma) that do e-TTL are more than she needs. Power, moveable head seem ideal. Optical slave could be great, but if she has a single off camera, she may not want to use the pop up to trigger (drat canon and their no on camera command of flashes), so the gadget infinity will be perfect for her. With optical hot shoes now about $10, she can always add that later. Also, you will at some point be tempted by the Vivitar DF400MZ, which is an off-brand eTTL flash (at least the Canon version is). Do not be tempted. It is horrible.
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| # ¿ Dec 19, 2008 20:43 |
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Guess what arrived today! ..wow. Now I actually know what people are talking about when they talk about quality of light. It's not just a really big hotshoe flash, the light coming out of it looks different. Also, power to spare - I pointed it at my ceiling from about 2' away, and I could just wander around the room taking pictures and it looked like there was just a big ceiling light on - you couldn't tell there was flash involved. The modeling light was DOA, but I blame that more on UPS than anything else. I also didn't realize how quiet hotshoe flashes are - you can certainly hear it when this thing fires. Question for people who use monolights regularly - if I'm using an umbrella, should I have the reflector off or on?
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| # ¿ Dec 19, 2008 21:25 |
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notlodar posted:Is it screwed in all the way? From what I hear, PCB is Jesus and he'll replace it for free. Yeah I checked it a few times, and the socket is fine since a regular 100W household bulb worked okay. I already e-mailed them about it, I'm sure they'll fly me a new one on the back of a choir of angels or something. Also, it looks like if I remove the reflector, it'll fit in my EX180 bag! Oh, and for those wondering about power, some unscientific tests reveal that the output of the AB400 is a bit less than two stops more than the 285HV. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at Dec 20, 2008 around 00:14 |
| # ¿ Dec 19, 2008 22:58 |
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MrButterpants posted:Does anyone have a matrix/chart built for things you can do by adjusting white balance on camera then adding gels to your flash? If you get the Rosco swatchbook, which you can get for free at any theatrical lighting retailer and some camera stores, the color correction gels actually have notes on them about when and how to use them, like the CTO gels say "Use to increase a xxxxK source to xxxxK." The green/magenta ones are slightly less intuitive, since it's not just color temperature correction, but the actual color of the light. What it comes down to is that the human eye is great at adapting to changing lighting conditions - which sucks, because cameras aren't. I don't have any charts or tables, but after a while you just sort of know approximately what color temperature various light sources are. As a general rule, incandescent lights are anywhere from 2900-3900K, depending on wattage and intensity and other factors, flashes are somewhere around 5600K (although there's still variation between models), and sunlight is anywhere from 5600-10000K (depending on time of day, atmospheric conditions, etc). The bigger the number, the more blue the light is. If you want to make a dim incandescent bulb look the same color as your flash, slap a CTB gel on it, or gel your flash with a CTO gel to make it the same color as the bulb. There's charts and poo poo galore, but really, gel is six bucks a sheet, so get some half CTO and half CTB and gently caress around with it until you get a feel for it.
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| # ¿ Dec 23, 2008 07:22 |
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poopinmymouth posted:I saw a video of Platon's work recently, and it looks like he always uses a single soft ish light above and center. The times he is outside it looks like a soft box because of the distance away he has to be, but for his portraits I think it's a beauty dish. I follow your blog pretty regularly, and I loved the Platon study. One thing I've had a hard time with though is finding where to buy that really small umbrella you have - any suggestions?
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| # ¿ Dec 27, 2008 08:05 |
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IsaacNewton posted:Things to note: I'm Canadian (lovely currency, can't buy from the state anymore) and I'm not quite ready to go all out on alien bees and the like. I have a couple strobes that I want to use with cactus triggers to see if this is for me. I sorta needs stands, clamps and umbrella to get started however. Depending where you are in Canada, Opus sells a stand/umbrella/swivel kit for hotshoe flashes for under a hundred dollars. I've used a bunch of hotshoe flashes and now my alienbees on it, and no complaints. The hotshoe mount thing that comes with it is a bit of a piece of poo poo, but yours might be okay, or you could just get an adapter and screw into that. I got mine at Kerrisdale Camera, London Drugs might have a similar thing.
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| # ¿ Jan 2, 2009 20:33 |
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Womens Jeans posted:So out of curiosity, what is so bad about buying 3 hotshoe flashes and just using them as the lighting, as opposed to getting studio lights? It seems like the flashes would be good as they'd be incredibly portable and not need any powerpoints.... First, you're talking at least four large hotshoe flashes to compete with one low-power studio light, which as an aside can recycle from full in half a second vs. 7-10 for hotshoe flashes at full (which they'd have to be, to poo poo out that kind of light). Second, it'd be impossible to mount them to a modifier, as brad said, even one as simple as an umbrella. This is really the same discussion as buying expensive camera bodies. Is there any shot I've taken that I actually could not have taken on an entry level body? Probably not. However, it makes my photography a lot easier when I can concentrate on that instead of fiddling with stupid settings and fighting with the gear. Same with lighting. I'm sure you could theoretically do studio light things with a bunch of hotshoe flashes, but you're going to be spending a lot more time getting angry at your lights and a lot less time taking pictures.
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| # ¿ Jan 6, 2009 06:13 |
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brad industry posted:I highly recommend that you guys who have never used some of this equipment rent a few things first and play around with it before you make a decision. I know not all cities have rental houses, but if you do it's really a lot cheaper than you would think. Most places only charge you for one day if you pick up on a Friday and return on Monday. Or even just ask on the forums - we're from all over. Any Vancouver goons are more than welcome to play with my AB400 a bit. And yeah, agreeing with Brad, it's not that hotshoe flashes don't have their place. I have 3 or 4 (285HV and a couple 433D), and I have no plans to give them up. They've just moved from being my primary light source to being rim lights and such. I'm pretty stuck on bringing my Alienbee to shoots now, but I still wouldn't leave the house without throwing a hotshoe flash in my bag.
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| # ¿ Jan 6, 2009 07:10 |
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brad industry posted:Good bags and cases for everything if you are going to be shooting on location - Pelican cases are really, really cheap considering the insane quality. For everything else I like the padded Calumet pouches, bags, etc. Get stuff with wheels and lots of handles and come up with some kind of system to store everything - otherwise you will constantly be searching through tangled messes of poo poo trying to find what you need and when it's time to pack up you'll eventually lose something. As a side note about Pelican cases, if you have Cybersyncs, the Pelican 1010 is so perfectly sized that they'll friction-fit side by side. You really couldn't ask for a more perfect case for them. For anyone else who has Cybersyncs, how do you attach them to your light stand / strobe? I'll probably end up getting my friend to knit me some trigger caddies, but until then, are there any good solutions?
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| # ¿ Jan 6, 2009 20:16 |
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brad industry posted:Yeah this thread needs MORE PICZ God you demanding internet people. Well, since this hotel room is full of awesome props (antique furniture, Underwood typewriter, etc), I'll do some stuff when I get back from dinner. Hopefully the innkeepers don't think I'm shooting porno in here. EDIT: Old typewriters are awesome. My photography, however, is not. Seriously, I have never in my life been less inspired. I need a model to sit on the chair and type something, then I'd get some ideas. 
SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at Jan 7, 2009 around 04:48 |
| # ¿ Jan 7, 2009 02:58 |
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I'm learning a lot from this thread actually, and I there's a lot of great pictures being posted. sonambulist's question got me thinking though, I'd love to see people's lighting setups along with their shots, at least for shots where they have a setup picture. It might help give people ideas about how to get the look they want. I don't have setup shots for anything good, but here's one for my terrible typewriter snapshot. 
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| # ¿ Jan 10, 2009 02:21 |
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| # ¿ May 21, 2013 00:48 |
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raggedphoto posted:Do you have interesting neighbors or do you bird watch? Anyway I have found that drawing a diagram with watt-seconds, aperture readings for each light, distance from subject and modifier used is much more useful than a pic of the set up. That way you have all the info if you should have to re-shoot something plus gives your peers a chance to trouble shoot with you after the shoot. This was in a hotel, and they provide binoculars to check out the huge shipwreck looking things in the harbor. 160 w/s light, slightly below 1/16 power (stopless adjustment hell yes), f/8-f/11 at ISO 400.
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| # ¿ Jan 10, 2009 02:57 |
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