Good... I like having them on there... its like a safety net for my cheap light stands (can't wait till I can upgrade to c stands with booms).... if it goes over (hopefully will never go over!) the weight of the softbox will take it that way, and the softbox will be a nice soft landing for the lights lol...
good to hear! (not that they fell, but that they survived!)
Can you point me in the direction of some good reading material or online videos? Thats how I've learned 90% of the photo stuff I know... its the only subject I like to research, and read about. Everything else puts me to sleep!
I'm snowed in, so I probably will be messing around with my lights all day.. you're like... "snow? haven't seen that since I left USSR!" We already had aprox. 13" and we're getting another 13" tonight! ridiculous!
good to hear! (not that they fell, but that they survived!)
Can you point me in the direction of some good reading material or online videos? Thats how I've learned 90% of the photo stuff I know... its the only subject I like to research, and read about. Everything else puts me to sleep!
I'm snowed in, so I probably will be messing around with my lights all day.. you're like... "snow? haven't seen that since I left USSR!" We already had aprox. 13" and we're getting another 13" tonight! ridiculous!
Merry Christmas!
there are plenty online tutes/videos on sites that sell lighting. I must say say, though, that while educational, they can't replace "messing around", which you have a perfect opportunity to do right now, now that you're buried under 26" of snow...:-)
However, I also thouroughly enjoyed one book: "Light: science and magic". I think I learned a lot from it, but you kinda need to be primed first, i.e. you must have some concepts in your head first to get the most out of it.
Re: snow... We have plenty in the Sierras now, like 1 hr away only. So if I miss it, I can get there in a jiffy. But, as you have guessed, I don't :-)
Turns out we got 3 inches of snow... then it turned to rain... so now we have compacted.. slushy'ish roads... and since they didn't plow today... its all gonna turn to ice overnight. perrrfect.
I've heard alot of people recommend that book. might have to check it out!
I got just what I wanted for Christmas... pj's that actually fit me.. slippers to keep my feet warm... and something else... oh yeah... my lights (although I had to pay for them, I count them as my gift for myself)
Very nice! Congrats ont he gifts! Nice diagonal lighting!
PS
Do you see the benefits of the grids? ;-)
Yes I do! They're very nice. I'm glad you talked me into them.
I'm buying that book on amazon after I'm done writing this... I'm getting the Kindle version (I don't have a kindle, but they have software so I can read it on my pc) so I can read it tonight some... I'm not very tired, I slept through most of the day! haha.
this time I tried messing around with High Key stuff... I'm trying to sell one of my backpacks I don't use so I figured I'd test out my high key setup.
Unfortunately most of my home made cyc wall is sitting in my garage right now... :cry So I just grabbed one of the tile boards and brought it inside for this.
setup shot:
used my sb-600 on the ground shot through a partly opened umbrella to fill in the inside pocket. the slave triggers on AB's is pretty good! I'm really surprised that both were triggered by my little speedlight on 1/32 power.
this time I tried messing around with High Key stuff... I'm trying to sell one of my backpacks I don't use so I figured I'd test out my high key setup.
Unfortunately most of my home made cyc wall is sitting in my garage right now... :cry So I just grabbed one of the tile boards and brought it inside for this.
setup shot:
used my sb-600 on the ground shot through a partly opened umbrella to fill in the inside pocket. the slave triggers on AB's is pretty good! I'm really surprised that both were triggered by my little speedlight on 1/32 power.
And the final outcome:
You did good for ebay, but you do know that the upper left corner is underlit?
When experimenting with the new HK setups (i.e. when you are not 100%certain) always bring it to PS and check the RGB values at the corners.
You did good for ebay, but you do know that the upper left corner is underlit?
When experimenting with the new HK setups (i.e. when you are not 100%certain) always bring it to PS and check the RGB values at the corners.
Yeah, I know... I bumped the exposure in LR2 to make the corner "match" the rest... I have realized how vital it is to have a Light Meter... which is why that is the next thing I'm going to get... hopefully very very soon too.
My exposure straight out of camera isn't great, so I've had to chimp and reshoot till its OK, but it wont be spot on till I get a meter. I know the background has to be two stops brighter than the subject for it to be true HK, and I can't measure that till I get a meter.
Yeah, I know... I bumped the exposure in LR2 to make the corner "match" the rest... I have realized how vital it is to have a Light Meter... which is why that is the next thing I'm going to get... hopefully very very soon too.
My exposure straight out of camera isn't great, so I've had to chimp and reshoot till its OK, but it wont be spot on till I get a meter. I know the background has to be two stops brighter than the subject for it to be true HK, and I can't measure that till I get a meter.
Fail on my part...
Well, there is a temporary solution to your worries: simply put the BG lights on max. The beauty of HK setup is there is no such thing as too much bg light:-). And if you have a careful separation of the bg and fg lighting, it will not reflect on your subject in any bad way. So yeah, you'd waste a few lumens, but who cares:-)
without a lightmeter, can you sorta kinda fake metering with your camera? By which I mean....go up to the bg and take note of the settings, and then again when pointed on the subject itself? I know it'll be reflected instead of incident, and a lightmeter is a more elegant solution, but can the camera's lightmeter get you in the ballpark?
without a lightmeter, can you sorta kinda fake metering with your camera? By which I mean....go up to the bg and take note of the settings, and then again when pointed on the subject itself? I know it'll be reflected instead of incident, and a lightmeter is a more elegant solution, but can the camera's lightmeter get you in the ballpark?
Unfortunately no, because the modeling light of the strobes is not wysiwyg... its close but no cigar. The only way this would work is if you're using continuous lighting... But I'm no expert... I'm pretty sure I'm correct though.
without a lightmeter, can you sorta kinda fake metering with your camera? By which I mean....go up to the bg and take note of the settings, and then again when pointed on the subject itself? I know it'll be reflected instead of incident, and a lightmeter is a more elegant solution, but can the camera's lightmeter get you in the ballpark?
As a very rough meter, the answer is yes. Take a shot at your BG and look at the histogram in RGB mode. You should have a single vertical line at the far right on all three channels, like this: ___|
Mind you, since the LCD is not a very precise instrument this may mean anything between 250 and 255. What you can do however, is to start *lowering* the power until you get even a slight variation from that ideal picture even in one channel. Once you get that, move the power slider/knob up 1/3..1/2 of the stop and you should be golden BG-wise....
HTH
Ah, well I never thought about the Histogram... I suppose you could then turn off the bg light, and do the same for the main light... till the mid tones are well balanced... See... I was wrong... don't listen to me all the time!
If your camera has highlight "blinkies", turn those on. You can take sample photos and when the background has lots of the blinkies on the LCD, the background is bleached out where the blinkies are.
If your camera has separate RGB histograms, review those to make sure each channel is saturated too. If any channel is less than saturated you will have some background toning possible.
If you can review the captured image on a computer, you can immediately confirm that you have achieved what you want to do by checking the image with ACR, Photoshop, Lightroom, or similar. This is by far the most accurate method, more so than any light meter.
If you do use an external meter, make sure that you calibrate it to your camera and system so that you know what the meter represents. Assuming that any meter is automatically accurate for your system is just asking for mistakes.
Finally, you can use a technique like Andy provided to set the background to white, assuming that you can identify the background from the subject:
If your camera has highlight "blinkies", turn those on. You can take sample photos and when the background has lots of the blinkies on the LCD, the background is bleached out where the blinkies are.
If your camera has separate RGB histograms, review those to make sure each channel is saturated too. If any channel is less than saturated you will have some background toning possible.
If you can review the captured image on a computer, you can immediately confirm that you have achieved what you want to do by checking the image with ACR, Photoshop, Lightroom, or similar. This is by far the most accurate method, more so than any light meter.
If you do use an external meter, make sure that you calibrate it to your camera and system so that you know what the meter represents. Assuming that any meter is automatically accurate for your system is just asking for mistakes.
Finally, you can use a technique like Andy provided to set the background to white, assuming that you can identify the background from the subject:
Comments
Can you point me in the direction of some good reading material or online videos? Thats how I've learned 90% of the photo stuff I know... its the only subject I like to research, and read about. Everything else puts me to sleep!
I'm snowed in, so I probably will be messing around with my lights all day.. you're like... "snow? haven't seen that since I left USSR!" We already had aprox. 13" and we're getting another 13" tonight! ridiculous!
Merry Christmas!
there are plenty online tutes/videos on sites that sell lighting. I must say say, though, that while educational, they can't replace "messing around", which you have a perfect opportunity to do right now, now that you're buried under 26" of snow...:-)
However, I also thouroughly enjoyed one book: "Light: science and magic". I think I learned a lot from it, but you kinda need to be primed first, i.e. you must have some concepts in your head first to get the most out of it.
Re: snow... We have plenty in the Sierras now, like 1 hr away only. So if I miss it, I can get there in a jiffy. But, as you have guessed, I don't :-)
Merry Xmas!
I've heard alot of people recommend that book. might have to check it out!
I got just what I wanted for Christmas... pj's that actually fit me.. slippers to keep my feet warm... and something else... oh yeah... my lights
the setup:
My favorite gift... cat in a box
PS
Do you see the benefits of the grids? ;-)
Yes I do! They're very nice. I'm glad you talked me into them.
I'm buying that book on amazon after I'm done writing this... I'm getting the Kindle version (I don't have a kindle, but they have software so I can read it on my pc) so I can read it tonight some... I'm not very tired, I slept through most of the day! haha.
Unfortunately most of my home made cyc wall is sitting in my garage right now... :cry So I just grabbed one of the tile boards and brought it inside for this.
setup shot:
used my sb-600 on the ground shot through a partly opened umbrella to fill in the inside pocket. the slave triggers on AB's is pretty good! I'm really surprised that both were triggered by my little speedlight on 1/32 power.
And the final outcome:
You did good for ebay, but you do know that the upper left corner is underlit?
When experimenting with the new HK setups (i.e. when you are not 100%certain) always bring it to PS and check the RGB values at the corners.
Yeah, I know... I bumped the exposure in LR2 to make the corner "match" the rest... I have realized how vital it is to have a Light Meter... which is why that is the next thing I'm going to get... hopefully very very soon too.
My exposure straight out of camera isn't great, so I've had to chimp and reshoot till its OK, but it wont be spot on till I get a meter. I know the background has to be two stops brighter than the subject for it to be true HK, and I can't measure that till I get a meter.
Well, there is a temporary solution to your worries: simply put the BG lights on max. The beauty of HK setup is there is no such thing as too much bg light:-). And if you have a careful separation of the bg and fg lighting, it will not reflect on your subject in any bad way. So yeah, you'd waste a few lumens, but who cares:-)
without a lightmeter, can you sorta kinda fake metering with your camera? By which I mean....go up to the bg and take note of the settings, and then again when pointed on the subject itself? I know it'll be reflected instead of incident, and a lightmeter is a more elegant solution, but can the camera's lightmeter get you in the ballpark?
Unfortunately no, because the modeling light of the strobes is not wysiwyg... its close but no cigar. The only way this would work is if you're using continuous lighting... But I'm no expert... I'm pretty sure I'm correct though.
Mind you, since the LCD is not a very precise instrument this may mean anything between 250 and 255. What you can do however, is to start *lowering* the power until you get even a slight variation from that ideal picture even in one channel. Once you get that, move the power slider/knob up 1/3..1/2 of the stop and you should be golden BG-wise....
HTH
If your camera has separate RGB histograms, review those to make sure each channel is saturated too. If any channel is less than saturated you will have some background toning possible.
If you can review the captured image on a computer, you can immediately confirm that you have achieved what you want to do by checking the image with ACR, Photoshop, Lightroom, or similar. This is by far the most accurate method, more so than any light meter.
If you do use an external meter, make sure that you calibrate it to your camera and system so that you know what the meter represents. Assuming that any meter is automatically accurate for your system is just asking for mistakes.
Finally, you can use a technique like Andy provided to set the background to white, assuming that you can identify the background from the subject:
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=46354&postcount=1
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