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Mani Gill

Mani Gill

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Mani
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Good evening all,

I have been asked if I can take some pictures of my nephew.

I have set up in the loft of my brother in laws house.

Using an Elinchrom D Lite one in a rotalux octabox.

I'm not familiar with studio flash, having used it a couple of times with varying results, mostly by trial and error rather than scientific.

I have attached a picture of my set up.

I've taken a few test shots with the light power the lowest it can be, my shots are still coming out over exposed.

What is the ideal way to do the set, the room is quite large and I have similar room behind me, should I take the light back a little?

Any advice would be appreciated. IMG_1487800522.193337.jpgIMG_1487800543.906491.jpg

Thank you

Mani
 
What are your camera settings? Have you tried a faster shutter speed or smaller aperture to lower the exposure?
 
connersz said:
What are your camera settings? Have you tried a faster shutter speed or smaller aperture to lower the exposure?
Click to expand...

I've reduced the aperture to f8 ISO is on auto - should really reduce it to 100.
I will re check the shutter speed, not sure what it was off the top of my head.

Using aperture priority.

Would you suggest manual settings?

Thank you.
 
Mani Gill said:
I've reduced the aperture to f8 ISO is on auto - should really reduce it to 100.
I will re check the shutter speed, not sure what it was off the top of my head.

Using aperture priority.

Would you suggest manual settings?

Thank you.
Click to expand...
Yes, you need to be using manual mode. The problem is that you're using aperture priority which means your ISO and shutter are being set by your camera. The camera is metering to work out the shutter and ISO to it's doing this without any information from your flash so all of your flash light is in addition to a perfect exposure.

A good place to start is manual mode, ISO 100, F7.1, 1/125 and set your studio light to about half power, shoot and re-adjust. I would get your softbox up a bit higher as well if you can.

I hope that make sense. I'm not the best teach because I've done it so many times that I don't think about what I'm doing or what affects what.
 
Mani Gill said:
I've reduced the aperture to f8 ISO is on auto - should really reduce it to 100.
I will re check the shutter speed, not sure what it was off the top of my head.

Using aperture priority.

Would you suggest manual settings?

Thank you.
Click to expand...
Auto ISO will always mess up here.

It's why old fogies like me keep saying 'Manual with Auto ISO isn't Manual'

Your auto ISO is trying to correctly expose the ambient, it doesn't have a clue what your flash is about to do. So when the flash fires you have overexposure.

You already know you should have set the ISO to 100, problem solved.
 
connersz said:
Yes, you need to be using manual mode. The problem is that you're using aperture priority which means your ISO and shutter are being set by your camera. The camera is metering to work out the shutter and ISO to it's doing this without any information from your flash so all of your flash light is in addition to a perfect exposure.

A good place to start is manual mode, ISO 100, F7.1, 1/125 and set your studio light to about half power, shoot and re-adjust. I would get your softbox up a bit higher as well if you can.

I hope that make sense. I'm not the best teach because I've done it so many times that I don't think about what I'm doing or what affects what.
Click to expand...

Makes sense.

I've been watching YouTube tutorials, but the settings you have advised to use, makes sense and then I can tailor the settings depending on how the pictures are looking.

Thank you
 
Phil V said:
Auto ISO will always mess up here.

It's why old fogies like me keep saying 'Manual with Auto ISO isn't Manual'

Your auto ISO is trying to correctly expose the ambient, it doesn't have a clue what your flash is about to do. So when the flash fires you have overexposure.

You already know you should have set the ISO to 100, problem solved.
Click to expand...

Thank you Phil,

Always helpful as usual. [emoji106]
 
Mani Gill said:
Makes sense.

I've been watching YouTube tutorials, but the settings you have advised to use, makes sense and then I can tailor the settings depending on how the pictures are looking.

Thank you
Click to expand...
You've got a good setup there to take some baby pictures. Put something on the beanbag and use it as a focus and exposure aid. If you get your flash power right using the kind of settings I suggested, you will have a bit of room to play with your aperture as an exposure adjustment when taking photos.
 
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