Home studio setup for pets

mike weeks said:
Sorry Garry but you are missing the point, as you decrease the power on traditional studio lights the flash duration increases and therefore there can be differences at 1/60 compared to 1/250 i.e. The shorter shutter duration will not see all of the flash pulse, nothing to do with ambient - how measurable and to what level is a different matter

Mike
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It would be a VERY poor flash head that took that long to make any difference - it really is the contribution from ambient lighting that matters. And as for the triggering delay caused by radio triggers, that was far more the case several years ago than now.

I could go into a lot more detail but I'm at my farm and only have my phone...
 
Garry Edwards said:
It would be a VERY poor flash head that took that long to make any difference - it really is the contribution from ambient lighting that matters. And as for the triggering delay caused by radio triggers, that was far more the case several years ago than now.

I could go into a lot more detail but I'm at my farm and only have my phone...
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Try it Garry. Compare 1/125sec and max x-sync speed at different power settings and with different triggers.

For interest I just did, with a Canon 7D (max x-sync 1/250sec) and YN 600EX-RT speedlight and Elinchrom D-Lite heads. Direct connection, either in the hot-shoe or hard-wire cable to sync port works best, but there's still a very slight loss of overall brightness at 1/1250sec and just noticeable shading at the bottom of the frame, and more so at low power on the D-Lites. Optical slave trigger (Prolinca) and optical slave sensor is also very quick - basically the same visually. With a plain, evenly lit subject (eg white background paper) the histogram shows as a slender spike.

But switch to a radio trigger and there's a slight change for the worse, even with fast ones like the YN-E3-RT and Elinchrom Skyport in speed mode. Histogram becomes more like a Christmas tree. Acceptable though I'd say, except for the most critical work. Use a slow trigger though, like the (otherwise excellent) Yongnuo RF-602 and that's unusable at 1/250sec, not quite right at 1/160sec, but perfectly clean at 1/125sec.
 
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I accept your findings, but personally I've never seen any visible effects, using my Nikon cameras.
Lencarta has a Canon, used for video, it's horribly slow and I'll do some tests with that when I go in there and will report back.
Meanwhile, even if there is a visible effect when shooting under test conditions e.g. a plain wall, I still can't see how this effect can possibly affect real world shooting conditions and can't see how shutter speed can be used to "tweak" exposure.
 
Garry Edwards said:
I accept your findings, but personally I've never seen any visible effects, using my Nikon cameras.
Lencarta has a Canon, used for video, it's horribly slow and I'll do some tests with that when I go in there and will report back.
Meanwhile, even if there is a visible effect when shooting under test conditions e.g. a plain wall, I still can't see how this effect can possibly affect real world shooting conditions and can't see how shutter speed can be used to "tweak" exposure.
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That Canon 7D has a pretty quick shutter action, it's APS-C after all, though you'll see it with Nikon too, and those camera models that can be pushed to 1/320sec show a marked reduction in brightness - as Nikon concedes.

Having done a bit more research and oscilloscope timings, the problem is much less the shutter action or the flash duration, even though the total burn times are much longer - it's the delay while the shutter is fully open, just sitting there waiting for the flash to fire. And when it does eventually get around to firing, the second shutter curtain is so near to closing that it overlaps with the tail of the flash pulse, causing a slight loss of overall brightness and a noticeable fading at the bottom of the frame. In normal photography though, even if you do notice it my guess is most people will just shrug it off or put it down to something else. After all, it's a well known 'fact' that shutter speed doesn't effect flash exposure ;)

No way can you use this to adjust exposure though - the brightness loss is slight, it varies down the frame and is unpredictable, depending on the camera, flash unit and power setting, and most of all the trigger used.
 
So what you essentially are saying is that flash sync speed is 1 stop slower due to the trigger delay. A "fault" and not really a creative tool to twink flash exposure with the shutter.
 
soeren said:
So what you essentially are saying is that flash sync speed is 1 stop slower due to the trigger delay. A "fault" and not really a creative tool to twink flash exposure with the shutter.
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Yes, but it depends very much on the trigger. With a fast trigger, as most of the current ones are, the effect is visible and measurable in controlled testing, but in practical terms it's insignificant - even if you ever notice it. But it's certainly not any kind of controllable tool.

ps If I may, and since I know you like your (excellent) English to be right, we'd say 'tweak' rather than 'twink' in single inverted commas rather than double (unless you're American) for emphasis, as opposed to a quotation. General journalistic style is to write single digits as words one to nine, then numbers, but this can sometimes get a bit messy so some discretion is allowed ;)
 
HoppyUK said:
Yes, but it depends very much on the trigger. With a fast trigger, as most of the current ones are, the effect is visible and measurable in controlled testing, but in practical terms it's insignificant - even if you ever notice it. But it's certainly not any kind of controllable tool.

ps If I may, and since I know you like your (excellent) English to be right, we'd say 'tweak' rather than 'twink' in single inverted commas rather than double (unless you're American) for emphasis, as opposed to a quotation. General journalistic style is to write single digits as words one to nine, then numbers, but this can sometimes get a bit messy so some discretion is allowed ;)
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Oh yes tweak. Thanks you're the first to bother and take your time to help me out with my English. I appreciate that very much.
 
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Jonesy83 said:
Nope, I posted on the first page that this is a learning experience for me and I'm no way near good enough to set up a business and then clarified again later on. Not that it matters, mind. The main thing is that you bunch are very helpful and informative!

Now, onto light meters for me! I've seen a few Shepherd meters on eBay and was wondering what people thought about the following model numbers......

FM800
AM130
FM100

Thanks!!
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So how you getting on with the lights?
 
I still haven't collected them yet!! The guy who I bought off travels between Birmingham and London and a few times we did have something arranged he either had to pull out because of work or he left some of the triggers in Birmingham. I've got a mates wedding coming up this weekend and then am moving house next weekend so it's just been really frantic and we haven't managed to sort a date. Luckily neither of us are in a massive rush and are quite laid back about it =)

It looks like you're getting on well with your recent purchase, that last portrait of Jude is stunning. You're making me jealous and more eager to get cracking with my stuff!
 
Cheers Steve, yes I'm really pleased with how that turned out. I'm waiting for a new light stand to come tomorrow as the Ad600 is too heavy for my cheap light stand. I'm quite pleased that my missus wanted to paint the walls in our lounge white now as I have just tried it out with a speed light pointed at the wall and the Ad600 as main light and it's spot on.
Hope to see some of yours up on here when you get your lights sorted.

Cheers

Matt
 
Ah, I can't remember if the new place we're moving into has white walls or not :thinking:......

Should have thought about that before agreeing to rent the place!!

Can't wait for your next instalment, cracking photos and Jude is beautiful!
 
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