Studio lighting advice please

[Veronica Youd]

I have recently acquired a studio lighting setup and back drops.
I have not had any experience in their use and am needing some advice on which camera setting:wacko: I should use as a priority and will I need to purchase a light meter.

[lostmysnorkel]

Yes, you will find it much easier andquicker to set up with a flashmeter - you would be able to achieve your settigs with trial & error, but to go threough that every time would be a real PITA.

Kenro have a little recently released for about £60, or keep your eye on eBay for 2nd hand.

As for camera settings, shoot in manual, shutter speed at around 1/60 - 1/100th and aperture at whatever the flashmeter tells you for your subject.

[Veronica Youd]

Thank you so much for your advice.
I did need a starting point to work from and you have given me that.
Hopefully in the near future I will have something worth posting.

[mogawowo]

Yes, you will find it much easier andquicker to set up with a flashmeter - you would be able to achieve your settigs with trial & error, but to go threough that every time would be a real PITA.

Kenro have a little recently released for about £60, or keep your eye on eBay for 2nd hand.

As for camera settings, shoot in manual, shutter speed at around 1/60 - 1/100th and aperture at whatever the flashmeter tells you for your subject.

Whenever im using my lghts I shoot around 1/300 1/250 should I tone down the lights a little?

[lostmysnorkel]

Whenever im using my lghts I shoot around 1/300 1/250 should I tone down the lights a little?

Assuming you are using flash and not continuous lighting, the shutter speed will have little effect on the exposure.

For continuous lighting set-ups, then yes, I would say that your lights are too bright unless you are shooting with the lens wide open at F2 or wider.

[Bandit]

Whenever im using my lghts I shoot around 1/300 1/250 should I tone down the lights a little?

Shutter speed has NO influence on the exposure at all, however If you shoot too slow ambient light can creep in, great for some occasions, but not studio where you need to be in full control of the light. Anything over 1/60th is fine.

Mogy' the true max x sync on your camera is 1/180, but I found I could push the E-410 way past this without any loss of the frame, However I would stick with 1/180th as a max.:ok:

[mogawowo]

Assuming you are using flash and not continuous lighting, the shutter speed will have little effect on the exposure.

For continuous lighting set-ups, then yes, I would say that your lights are too bright unless you are shooting with the lens wide open at F2 or wider.

2x strobe reflector and a speedlight

and shooting around f3.5 usually.


Thanks for the informative answer also Bandit!

[Bandit]

2x strobe reflector and a speedlight

and shooting around f3.5 usually.


Thanks for the informative answer also Bandit!

Speedlight( Speedlite) is a pruduct brand name for a Canon flash guns only. Olympus ( and everyone else) just call em "flashguns" :acute:

f3.5 is very shallow for portrait works as it's hard to get the ears eyes and nose all in focus, however the 2 x crop factor on the Oly will help due to the extra DOF these cameras give. :)

[Tesla]

Good point about the aperture. You'll be shocked at how the DOF disappears with portraits.

For a full frame face using a 24-70 at the 70 end i'm metered for at least F8. I think the bodyguard shot which has been mentioned in another thread was F16 !

Another quickie tip for a problem which I see a lot, is that people will have the subject too close to the backdrop. Its such a simple thing but worth thinking about. Push that backdrop back a few feet. Looking forward to seeing some pics! :)