Strobist questions

Hi All,


so I've been playing a bit with my pair of Elinchrom D-Lites, and am starting to like the results, but I've got two questions that I hope somebody here (no names ;-) can help out with:


Even with a single strobe at minimal power, I find myself using ISO 100 and apertures from f/8 to f/13. Is it normal to use NDs with strobes to get a wide-open portrait for thin DoF? Or is it exaggerated that for maximum effect I'm always trying to get the softbox as close as possible to the subject, should I just move it away in order to reduce the light, and be able to shoot at large apertures (small f-numbers)?


The softbox is making nice portraits, but my handling of the beauty dish doesn't quite meet my expectations; how should I position it for a "fail-safe" portrait, and which deflector should I use? This is the 44cm Elinchrom white beauty dish, and I've got a complete set of 4 different Elinchrom deflectors that I can mount.


Thanks, Colin

I

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Originally Posted by Colin500

Even with a single strobe at minimal power, I find myself using ISO 100 and apertures from f/8 to f/13. Is it normal to use NDs with strobes to get a wide-open portrait for thin DoF?

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Yes. That's one of the main reasons I put an ND or polarizer on -- to get back that control over DOF when shooting with flash.

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Originally Posted by Colin500

should I just move it away in order to reduce the light, and be able to shoot at large apertures (small f-numbers)?

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No, light placement should primary be about other issues.

Thanks Daniel and Keith,


that confirms my suspicion that moving the strobe farther away somehow defeats the purpose... I

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Originally Posted by Colin500

...for maximum effect I'm always trying to get the softbox as close as possible to the subject, should I just move it away in order to reduce the light, and be able to shoot at large apertures (small f-numbers)?

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I would propose 2 options.


#1 - Softbox farther away from subject


Can you explain exactly at what distance you are placing your softbox and the dimensions of your softbox? Also whether you are doing close up portrait or a whole body shot.As an example, if you were to double your distance from the subject to the light source, that's already 4 stops of aperture that you can open up.


When you have the softbox extremely close, for me it often times also acts as a slight fill to the opposing side of the face. It's great for a one pony setup when you don't have any other strobes or reflectors. But depending on the size of your softbox the difference may be minimal especially for closeup portraits. If not, a simple reflector will most likely counter that difference.


#2 - ND Filter


If you are using minimal power setting I'm assuming you are doing a studio style indoor shoot. If you are shooting f/8 or f/13 and you say that you want "wide-open", you'll have to get at minimum 3 stops ND Filter. I have a 3 stop ND Filter on my 7D shooting at f/1.8 or f/2.0. I've tried test shooting indoors with it, the finder is very very dark, and the AF sometimes has a hard time finding focus.


In the future when shooting outdoors with the strobes, you'll need the ND filters no matter what for wide-open shots unless you have Nikon D40 or the other cameras that can sync up to 1/8000sec David Hobby style.


So getting the ND Filter might be a good investment if you plan on taking your strobist shoots outdoors in the future [;)]

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Originally Posted by TakahiroW4047

#1 - Softbox farther away from subject


Can you explain exactly at what distance you are placing your softbox and the dimensions of your softbox? Also whether you are doing close up portrait or a whole body shot.As an example, if you were to double your distance from the subject to the light source, that's already 4 stops of aperture that you can open up.


When you have the softbox extremely close, for me it often times also acts as a slight fill to the opposing side of the face. It's great for a one pony setup when you don't have any other strobes or reflectors. But depending on the size of your softbox the difference may be minimal especially for closeup portraits. If not, a simple reflector will most likely counter that difference.

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I've got one softbox, it's a 35x90 cm, and I'm using it for close-up portraits, with a distance of something less than a meter between light and subject. I will try with the light farther away and a reflector; thre's no softbox for the other strobe, I've been using the second strobe from laterally-above-behind with a grid as directional hair-light which works pretty well.

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Originally Posted by TakahiroW4047

#2 - ND Filter


If you are using minimal power setting I'm assuming you are doing a studio style indoor shoot. If you are shooting f/8 or f/13 and you say that you want "wide-open", you'll have to get at minimum 3 stops ND Filter. I have a 3 stop ND Filter on my 7D shooting at f/1.8 or f/2.0. I've tried test shooting indoors with it, the finder is very very dark, and the AF sometimes has a hard time finding focus.


In the future when shooting outdoors with the strobes, you'll need the ND filters no matter what for wide-open shots unless you have Nikon D40 or the other cameras that can sync up to 1/8000sec David Hobby style.

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Once I get a step-up ring my only ND, a 6-stop, should do fine — from f/11 to f/2 gives me 5 stops back, then I can either double the strobe power or the ISO, and I've made up all 6 stops that the ND gets rid of. The AF might indeed get a bit hairy, although given enough time the 5D2 seems to do pretty well in low light, and in a studio setting I can usually try again... Regarding outdoors, I won't be carting monolights around in a park, sun and reflector will have to do (perhaps I will end up getting a 580, but that's a long way down the list, after a 100mm macro and some other lenses ;-)


Just curious, but how does a camera sync with a flash up to 1/8000 sec? Is the timing reversed, i.e. instead of the flash firing while the shutter is open, does the shutter open while the flash is firing?


Thanks, Colin

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Originally Posted by Colin500

Just curious, but how does a camera sync with a flash up to 1/8000 sec? Is the timing reversed, i.e. instead of the flash firing while the shutter is open, does the shutter open while the flash is firing?

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Been trying to overpower ambient light with off camera strobe that can't do HSS.


The off camera strobe fires when the first curtain starts to open and lasts until the second curtain closes. If the flash duration at full power is 1/1000sec, then the shutter speed is faster, thus making the flash a continuous light source during that time. Then your flash starts to act like ambient light so with higher shutter speeds you'll start to get less exposure and need to open up the aperture or raise the ISO. But that's exactly what I'm going for. Shooting wide open, killing ambient light so my the background is couple stops underexposed relative to the subject, with a single measly speedlight [;)]


The trick is to have your camera somehow trigger the off camera strobes while it is in HSS mode. I've read about using 430 or 580's on camera in HSS mode at the lowest power. You strap an optical trigger on the flash head and have that wirelessly trigger your off camera strobes. Unfortunately the camera strobes don't seem to do HSS, and I don't have either of those Canon speedlights at the moment [:(]


But once I do! hopefully I'll be shooting outdoors on a sunny bright day with my portable (and relatively weak) speedlights and be able to easily and completely overpower the sun for some dramatic shots! [:D]

Or you can get monolights, use CPLs & NDs, and just shoot at max sync speed. ;-)


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4151/...2d2fea1f3b.jpg


Of course, I'm not actually shooting with a wide aperture here--but I could have been with an ND filter underneath the CPL.

I would love to get some Alienbees!! [:'(] I want their HUGE plm's!!


But with ND+CPL, the relatively weak speedlights that I have has to fight that much harder too, on top of what the light modifier is already leaching on. With this route, I can use the flash that I have more efficiently and also get to shoot wide open. Not to mention the portability!


I think in my case, I've already gone too far in the speedlight track (3 speedlights already). Unless I sell them all to get 1 monolight...


The only additional equipment I need to get this to work is a 430EXII or a 580EXII and a cheap optical trigger. Or just an optical trigger for those who already own the canon speedlights...I'm jealous [;)] ...oh and you can also do 2nd curtain with off camera strobes too this way!! Although I can't think of a situation to use it in at the moment...just throwing that out there haha.


*EDIT - here's the link to the discussion about it


http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157604724354633/?search=high+speed+hack

I've tried rear-curtain sync using optical triggers with less-than-reliable results. Then again, I may have been stretching the practical use by just a bit (I won't go into detail).


I did many things to try to get more power from my speedlights:


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/...e21fbf5a_m.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3240/...2f0e75ac_m.jpg


In the end, I decided it was easier just to buy monolights. Keep in mind, I bought every monolight I have second-hand from Ebay and KEH. In fact, you can pick upa White Lightning Ultra 600 in good conditionfor around $150 (or even less on a good day). Throw in a $240 Vagabond Mini, and you're still looking at less than the cost of a 580EX.


Do I still use my speedlights? Of course! But for what you're wanting, I don't knowthat speedlights are the best tool for the job.

Hmm thanks for the tip on the White Lighting Ultra!! I'll definitely look into that.


Now that I think about it, if I'm going to be underexposing the background, then whether it is in focus or OOF becomes less of an issue. Touche [;)]


If the two methods are of equal price though, I may still bank on the portability of the speedlight. That and I also like photographing events too and I'm starting to feel the limits of a manual flash (Although in certain circumstances, bouncing off the ceiling at a constant power is favorable). ETTL from the Canon speedlights might be next on my wish list. 2 birds with 1 stone.

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Originally Posted by Sean Setters

I've tried rear-curtain sync using optical triggers with less-than-reliable results. Then again, I may have been stretching the practical use by just a bit (I won't go into detail).

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I was thinking about having the canon speedlight(On camera in HSS mode) optically triggering the Cactus V4 transmitter so it would radio trigger the Cactus V4 receivers to set off the off camera flashes. I came across some hotshoe optical triggers going for about $30. Although the range of the Cactus V4's are pretty sketchy so I wouldn't know how practical that would be as well...

Hey Sean. With so many speedlights, any experience with any Sigma brands??

None. Honestly, my favorites are the three Quantaray flashes I got for about $25 each on closeout. They

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Originally Posted by TakahiroW4047

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Colin500

Just curious, but how does a camera sync with a flash up to 1/8000 sec? Is the timing reversed, i.e. instead of the flash firing while the shutter is open, does the shutter open while the flash is firing?

---

Been trying to overpower ambient light with off camera strobe that can't do HSS.


The off camera strobe fires when the first curtain starts to open and lasts until the second curtain closes. If the flash duration at full power is 1/1000sec, then the shutter speed is faster, thus making the flash a continuous light source during that time. Then your flash starts to act like ambient light so with higher shutter speeds you'll start to get less exposure and need to open up the aperture or raise the ISO. But that's exactly what I'm going for. Shooting wide open, killing ambient light so my the background is couple stops underexposed relative to the subject, with a single measly speedlight [img]/emoticons/emotion-5.gif[/img]


The trick is to have your camera somehow trigger the off camera strobes while it is in HSS mode. I've read about using 430 or 580's on camera in HSS mode at the lowest power. You strap an optical trigger on the flash head and have that wirelessly trigger your off camera strobes. Unfortunately the camera strobes don't seem to do HSS, and I don't have either of those Canon speedlights at the moment [img]/emoticons/emotion-6.gif[/img]


But once I do! hopefully I'll be shooting outdoors on a sunny bright day with my portable (and relatively weak) speedlights and be able to easily and completely overpower the sun for some dramatic shots! [img]/emoticons/emotion-2.gif[/img]

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Interesting, hadn't thought of reversing (the inclusion relationship of) the timing in that way; suppose I can just try it with the D-Lite and see what happens; not having any other strobes, I'm triggering with the Skyport ECO transmitter.


(Btw, one reason to choose the D-Lite was that the radio-receiver is built in to every strobe, a few less cables and stuff to think about; of course compared to speedlights the whole setup is pretty much indoors only, and I hope that limitation won'b bite me further down the road.)


Ciao, Colin

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Originally Posted by Colin500

Interesting, hadn't thought of reversing (the inclusion relationship of) the timing in that way; suppose I can just try it with the D-Lite and see what happens; not having any other strobes, I'm triggering with the Skyport ECO transmitter.

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Not sure what you mean by "reversing (the inclusion relationships of) the timing"?


Did you mean to switch from 1st curtain to 2nd curtain? If so, that method shouldn't work from what I read. I believe it'll switch from the "strobes firing at the moment both curtains become fully open", to "strobes firing at the very end right before fully open curtains begin to close". You will need "strobes firing when the first curtain begins to open, until the second curtain closes" and you can only get that with HSS enabled canon flash on hotshoe (or off camera with ST-E2/cable).


Unfortunately the camera will not go into HSS mode with radiotriggers on its hotshoe [:(]

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Originally Posted by Colin500

...compared to speedlights the whole setup is pretty much indoors only, and I hope that limitation won'b bite me further down the road.)

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You'll only be thankful down the road [:D]


If you choose to go outdoors, just get some portable batteries and you'll be having a blast overpowering the sun!

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Originally Posted by TakahiroW4047

Not sure what you mean by "reversing (the inclusion relationships of) the timing"?

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Erm, usually the order of events is more or less:


open shutter -> start flash -> stop flash -> close shutter


so if you mark the intervals "shutter is open" and "flash is flashing" on the time axis, the latter is a sub-set (sub-interval) of the former.


But with the high-speed synching you seem to invert this relationship by switching to:


start flash -> open shutter -> close shutter -> stop flash


which seems a cool trick, because suddenly you can use different shutter times to regulate the amount of light (provided by the strobe) that you capture, which you normally can't (on the flip side, you can regulate the amount of ambient light that you capture if you use normal synching and keep the shutter open for much longer than required to normally sync with the flash.)


I'll see about the batteries when it stops raining ;-)


Ciao, Colin