Studio lighting problem

kgiller

Hey lads,
I managed to borrow a studio light kit from a buddy of mine and plan to take a few portraits etc with them. Just set it up the other day and was messing around with them, but theres a problem.

The setup is basically 2 lights with softboxes on stands. Theres a small attachment then that goes onto the hot shoe of the camera. Theres also a screen background.

The problem is that when i take photos at 1/200 at f4 the pic is fine (but too bright). When i increase the shutterspeed to 1/320, 1/500 a black bar appears on the bottom of the picture, in proportion to the shutter speed. So at 1/200 its fine, at 1/320 it covers the bottom quarter of the pic, at 1/500 it covers halfway up the pic etc.

Does anyone know what this could be?

Fajitas!

Your camera has a maximum sync speed (Of 200). Keep below that and you'll be grand.

stcstc

ok you cant generally use a shutter speed above 1/250 sec

because the shutter is actually made from 2 shutters in most DSLR cameras, and the bar your seeing is one of the shutters

so what you need to do is turn down the brightness, or power output of the lights if you want to use f4


most portrait photogs in a studio would generally use f8

then your main light, (key light) will be set for f8 and your fill light , or general light should be between f4 and f5.6.

but to do this and set it up reasonabbly acuratley you need a light meter.

then turn off the fill light and meter the key light till you get a reading for f8

then turn off the key and meter the fill at 5.6

these settings would be based on iso 100 and shutter spee of 1/125

hope this helps

Fireman

Fajitas! wrote: »

Your camera has a maximum sync speed (Of 200). Keep below that and you'll be grand.

What I use all the time is 1/125 and 7.1 and ISO 100, and I may adjust my lights to suit the occasion

kgiller

Ok thanks lads. Thats kindof what i thought was happening. Wasnt sure if there was some way of chaging the sync speed or something. I thought an aperture of f4 or something big like that would be better for blurring out the background.

So f8 is the best(sharpest) for portraits?

ThOnda

The shutter speed is constant, only the ISO and Aperture changes. Or the power and distance of lights.
F stops are generally according to your needs. with F8 there is enough depth of field to have sharp tip of the nose to the ears (when focusing on eyes), depending on used lense. If you have suitable background, you can increase the Aperture number.
Edit: The background - just step away further from it :-)

kgiller

I borrowed my brothers 60mm f/2.8 for this because it is so sharp, but i think its too close, probbaly have to use my kit lens . The plan was to take a pic of myself and girlfriend together.

ThOnda

??? You can move camera further from the object. You can move object further from the background. You could even position subject into the open door with the lights off in the room behind you and you could get completely black background (the light reduces with the square of the distance, and the light goes even "two distances" - from lamp to subject and reflected from subject to the camera). No need for kit lens, in my opinion.

kgiller

ThOnda wrote: »

??? You can move camera further from the object. You can move object further from the background. You could even position subject into the open door with the lights off in the room behind you and you could get completely black background (the light reduces with the square of the distance, and the light goes even "two distances" - from lamp to subject and reflected from subject to the camera). No need for kit lens, in my opinion.

Ok. Il have to play around with it anyway. Thanks for the help.