HOW TO SET THE D80 UP FOR STUDIO LIGHTING

shaundesigner

shaundesigner

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Shaun
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On my canon I could change the flash settings on my options; I could set it to second curtain sync or something like that,

Has the d80 got the same sort of thing?

Just that my images are very dark which makes me think the flashes are firing too soon or too late
 
What lights are you using, what shutter speed, are you using a light meter, how are you triggering the lights? you can set to rear curtain but shouldnot need to, can yo post an example shot with exif details, i can not right click at the moment to see the details as I am sat in a hospital bed using a usless computer.
 
Oh well hope you get better soon mate know the feeling of being in hospital.

Im using interfit 150ex

1/250??

F3.6

Onboard flash to trigger them off

I can post a pic later tonight

Not using a light meter
 
What you're finding, if you're using the on board flash in TTL mode is that camera fires a series of preflashes to determine the actual exposure... These pre-flashes will be setting off the flash heads and making your pics underexposed. This all takes place in a fraction of a second and is pretty much invisible to the naked eye.

Put the flash into manual mode, or better still, get a set of radio triggers, or an infrared transmitter.

I would also consider dropping your shutter speed slightly, although that's not causing this issue, you may find that you get a black band down one side where the shutter has started to close before the exposure has finished.
 
SW said:
Oh well hope you get better soon mate know the feeling of being in hospital.

Im using interfit 150ex

1/250??

F3.6

Onboard flash to trigger them off

I can post a pic later tonight

Not using a light meter
Click to expand...

Ok, I would drop the shutterspeed to 1/125 or 1/60, I think the problem with the dark images is probably due to the on board flash being in ttl mode and the pre flashes are setting the interfit flashes off, switch the onboard flash to manual and 1/128th power. Although radio triggers would be even better in the long run. I would also suggest that you get a light meter as this makes setting up the lights and camera so much easier and not such guess work.
 
Try starting off at something like 1/160th at f8, I found that anything above this on my D80 would result in shutter lag making the image dark.

If you have to use the onboard to trigger the lights then as per above set it to M rather than TTL as the TTL sends out flashes before the picture is taken where as M doesnt.

It also depends on what ISO you are using and what power the studio lights are.
 
SW said:
ok brilliant just that i had very over exposed shots with the canon,
but no longer have that i have the nikon
Click to expand...


If this was with studio flashes, this is why I said to get a light meter, it really does take the guess work out of setting up the lighting.
 
I would get a sekonic l308s will do flash and ambient light, easy to use digital read out and iirc about £130.
 
SW said:
hmm could make life a lot easier hey...
never used or seen one lol

could be interesteing hey
Click to expand...

Basically what you do is connect to one of the flashheads with sync cable, set your iso and shutter speed hold the light meter infront of the subject with ipinting towards the camera and making sure that you are not between the meter and the lights, push the button on the side of the meter the flashes will fire and the meter will tell you what aperture to use. Easy as that.
 
No! ISO 100 shutter 1/200. Then meter for the aperture.

In studio lighting you set your camera to your synch speed so you should be on 1/200 to start with anyway. You can always turn it down (Not up or you will get black lines at the edge) but as you turn it down you put the Iso AND shutter speed into the meter and it will tell you the aperture AT THAT FLASH POWER. Change the power and you need to meter again.
 
As AliB said. I would suggest having a bit of a play before you use it infront of a model so that you look compident (sp) and knwht you are doing, as faffing around will put the model on edge and nervous and this will show in the photos.
 
SW said:
no way thats amazing,

will it tell you shutter speed aswell is it that being lazy???
Click to expand...

Shutter speed doesn't matter - you just need to make sure your shutter speed is not above the sync speed of the camera.

The duration of a studio flash is milliseconds - much shorter than the time your shutter is open - so the only thing you need to do with your shutter speed make sure the shutter is open at the same time as your studio lights fire. The sync speed is the maximum shutter speed you can set where the camera can trigger studio lights while the shutter is open.

Hope that makes sense
 
I cant remember if you can do this on older models (I know you can do it with the D90).. But with my D700, you can set the onboard flash to simply work as a trigger to set off other lights instead of having to use it on TTL. The light in this trigger mode will be nothing significant enough to make a difference to your image.
 
jayeshpp said:
I cant remember if you can do this on older models (I know you can do it with the D90).. But with my D700, you can set the onboard flash to simply work as a trigger to set off other lights instead of having to use it on TTL. The light in this trigger mode will be nothing significant enough to make a difference to your image.
Click to expand...

so how did you do that then?



by the way guys thanks for all your help its much appreciated....
 
in the menu go to flash menu then you will see one of the option for onboard flash which you can change from ttl to com to ---, if you use the last one it will fire the flash but at such alow power it will not effect the exposure, You need to check in your manual as i can not remember if this is for the control if the nikon flashguns off camera where they still use ttl metering eventhough they are off camera, so may cause the same problem as youroriginal post in that it may trigger the flashes early.
 
Why not give Mifsuds a call in Paignton, they are not to far from you, they may even have a second hand one. I would not get one from abroad personally for a couple of reasons.
1 why support another countries economy at the moment.
2 you still would have to pay vat and import duty along with a possible handling charge from the courier for paying the import duty and vat. so they are not always as cheap as they seem.
 
Working the way you are is complicated, mixing auto-TTL with studio flash. There's some good advice here but also some misinformation.

You cannot use studio flash with auto-TTL. The pre-flash (which is so fast you can't see it) triggers the studio units which then fire too early and this sounds like your main problem.

To get around that, you must disable the pre-flash (not disable the main flash) but you can only do that by switching the flash to full manual control. Not sure you can do that; you cannot use fully manual flash on my Canon cameras for example, only with a separate gun. Nikon might be different.

If you can set the camera flash to fully manual, you're in business. Set it on a low power so that it doesn't affect the main picture too much but is strong enough to trigger the optical slaves on the studio units.

Set the shutter to 1/125sec and leave it there. Adjust the exposure with flash power, f/number and ISO. Shutter speed makes no difference to the flash exposure. (Google focal plane shutter to find out how it's all working.)

If you cannot set the camera flash to manual, you can use a cable sync lead. You might have got one with the flash kit. It will have a co-ax socket to plug into the camera. If the D80 doesn't have a sync socket, buy a £5 hot-shoe adapter from Jessops. You only need to sync up one flash head and if you have two or more they will fire off it via their optical slaves.

The other way is to do it with radio triggers. Yongnuo RF-602 is favourite these days. £28 for a set of transmitter and receiver units from Flash In The Pan on here post #2 http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=157807

Edit: The problem looks like flash sync, not exposure. A flash meter is very useful but you need to get everyting firing properly first. Just to get one or two lights exposing correctly, you can do that without a flash meter by chimping the LCD with blinkies enabled and checking the histogram. A flash meter is most useful when trying to balance multiple lighting ratios; always go by the histogram for final exposure setting anyway.
 
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