Problem to be Solved

trev wilson

trev wilson

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Hi,
Ive got a 3 head Lasolite Lumen8 Studio light set. Its worked perfectly on the few occassions Ive used it. Im shooting a D3 and 24-70 f2.8.

Ok the problem, used one light with soft box to shoot friends baby, no pressure because they live really close and no payment involved.

D3 set to manual 200iso, F11, various speeds from 125th to 300th, lights set to various power settings. Flash fires every time.

Im getting half the image lit and the bottom half is blacked out.

Im hoping its user error..

Any Ideas please ??????????
 
Im sure this has something to do with shutter speed and flash sync speeds.( sorry to be vague) Like my Pop-Up Flash only goes upto 1/200s speed, any higher and I think you get that effect you describe.

"At speeds above the maximum sync, the curtains can't move fast enough to fully open and then quickly close. So camera designers employ a neat trick: At high shutter speeds, the second curtain begins to close before the first curtain fully opens. In this way, a band or slit of exposure moves across the frame, which effectively yields a short shutter speed.

The flash duration in standard mode is usually much shorter than the time it takes for the shutter to travel across the frame—the flash is effectively instantaneous. But at any given instant at very high shutter speeds, only a part of the frame is exposed by this moving slit. That's why you can't use your standard flash at speeds higher than the sync speed: part of the frame would be covered by the partially opened curtains and would be black. "


hope someone comes along who knows a fair bit more than me to help you out.
 
I'm not familiar with studio lights but with speedlights you'll be limited to the 1/250th sec sync speed of the D3. I can understand if its happening at 1/300 but under that should be fine :shrug:
 
THmaga is 100% right, but one more thing to add...
I'll bet a £ to a penny that you're using a radio trigger, and I'll also bet that it's a cheapie - nearly all of the cheaper radio triggers introduce a delay before firing the flash, this doesn't cause the problem set out by Thmaga but it does make it worse - i.e. a flash that might synch correctly at (say) 1/250th with a pc cord connection may only synch properly at a much slower speed with a bad radio trigger.

But why do you want to use such a fast shutter speed with flash anyway? It's pointless.
 
Glad I got it right, I pick up allot from reading threads on here.
 
Garry Edwards said:
THmaga is 100% right, but one more thing to add...
I'll bet a £ to a penny that you're using a radio trigger, and I'll also bet that it's a cheapie - nearly all of the cheaper radio triggers introduce a delay before firing the flash, this doesn't cause the problem set out by Thmaga but it does make it worse - i.e. a flash that might synch correctly at (say) 1/250th with a pc cord connection may only synch properly at a much slower speed with a bad radio trigger.

But why do you want to use such a fast shutter speed with flash anyway? It's pointless.
Click to expand...

Cheers spot on. I was'nt doing the shooting just told her off for using high speeds and dropped it to 100th.

All working fine now. Reckon the cheapie trigger is the fault for sure..(y)(y)(y)

The wireless trigger working fine at 100th..
 
Cheapo triggers also seem to have longer delay when the batteries are tired.

Before you bin the triggers, with fresh batteries you should be okay at 1/125sec (and longer). Maybe a bit higher. Worth a try.

But as Garry says, unless the ambient room light is high, there's no benefit at all to using a fast shutter speed.
 
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