Blurring advice

stu2fly

stu2fly

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Name
Stuart
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Hi all,
I took this photo using my Lasolite Hi-lite with a light pointing inside the reflector and one from over my shoulder. A lot of the images were spot on but some had this blurring/shadowing. Can someone tell me what I did wrong. I used a Canon 40d 24-105mm L lens.
Thanks
Stu

 
It's flare, caused by light travelling directly into your lens from the Hi-lite. It looks to me as if you followed their advice to overexpose it by 2 stops. Don't.
 
It's not flare, but ghosting caused by subject and/or camera movement, because you were shooting at 1/8sec.

You have the camera on Av and it has set a shutter speed based on the level of ambient light, which is obviously irrelevant with flash. With studio flash you must be in manual - set the shutter speed to 1/200sec, which will effectively eliminate it, and adjust the exposure with the f/number, ISO, and flash output power.

Edit: Nice image BTW (y) The background looks a little bright there, but it's hard to tell because of the ambient blurring. I'm guessing that it's probably okay, and blonde hair is notoriously susceptible to even the slightest bit of over exposure against white. But that seems to have held, just about. Can you post one of the sharp ones for comparison?
 
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HoppyUK said:
It's not flare, but ghosting caused by subject and/or camera movement, because you were shooting at 1/8sec.
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We'll have to agree to disagree again:)
 
Garry Edwards said:
We'll have to agree to disagree again:)
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Garry, I know you don't like the HiLite (and are probably feeling a bit the same way about me today :D ) but it is not the source of all evil that you make out. Far from it, excellent kit.

Just look at the girl's left knee and both left hands. That is not flare! :eek:
 
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Have a google of 'focal plane shutter' and you'll understand what's happening with x-sync etc.

Your camera can run at up to 1/250sec with flash, with an IR trigger or sync cord, but if you're using a radio trigger they usually introduce a very slight delay, hence the suggestion of 1/200sec. If you still get a thin dark line or shadow at the bottom of the frame, go to 1/160sec.

Ambient blurring is a potential problem with kids leaping around, and it will show up most against a pure white background. The flash will freeze the movement, but the very long shutter speed of 1/8sec you used has allowed too much ambient to burn through.

Raising the x-sync will reduce that dramatically, but for a complete solution, turn down or switch off the modelling lights in the HiLight.
 
Garry and Hoppy could both be right - I personally feel that anything slower than 1/60 risks blur, especially with kids.
 
cambsno said:
Garry and Hoppy could both be right - I personally feel that anything slower than 1/60 risks blur, especially with kids.
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Not in this case. Of all the things going on in that image, flare is not one of the problems.

In fact I'd say the flare probably quite well controlled - 24-105L is one of the best lenses I've ever used for flare control. If it had been a nifty-50, which is quite prone to flare, it might be different. The slighly soft focus look is entirely consistent with ambient blur - there's clear evidence of both vertical and horizontal subject movement if you check the ghosting around the hands and leggings.

I think the OP just had a moment of brain fade and left the camera on Av accidentally. Apart from that, I think everything looks pretty good TBH (y)
 
I know that there's some subject movement, but the problem is definately flare. I've messed up enough shoots to know that for a fact:)
 
Some subject movement? There's bagloads of it. The left leg, right leg, hands and arms all show it.

Of course it's going to look like flare in some places because of the "part exposure".
 
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