I got my bees!

[Geoff_M]

Andrew, you are correct that the 1/20 sec exposure would gather 9/200 sec (1/20 - 1/200) MORE ambient light than the 1/200 sec exposure, but as long as the brightness differential between the ambient light and the flash level is great enough, the additional light won't be enough to make a noticeable different in the photo.

 

[Lizziejane]

...you guys...you're making my poor ol' head spin again...

 

[DVC Jen]

so if this is the case why not always just set your shutter for 1/250 to get it as fast as your camera/strobes can handle - wouldn't this be ideal as far as making sure you get a crisply focused photo?


Or are you saying that a photo hand held at 1/20 is going to be the same as one hand held at 1/250? OR is it just the exposure that is basically the same. And if that is true - why do so many people spend so much darn $ on trying to get better exposures if they all turn out the same with a flash/strobe?

I am not saying you guys are wrong - jsut trying to wrap my brain around all of this to understand it. Especially since there really was enough of a difference when I upped the shutter from 1/200 to 1/250 - at least as far as the blown highlights and this was late last night without any other lights on in the room.

Jane I am with you - my head hurts now.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

so if this is the case why not always just set your shutter for 1/250 to get it as fast as your camera/strobes can handle - wouldn't this be ideal as far as making sure you get a crisply focused photo?

That's exactly what I'm saying. Use the fastest flash speed that always syncs. It will give you the least blur from camera shake. It will give you the least blur from movement of your subject. It will be the least affected by ambient light. Slowing down the shutter won't change your flash exposure.

Or are you saying that a photo hand held at 1/20 is going to be the same as one hand held at 1/250? OR is it just the exposure that is basically the same. And if that is true - why do so many people spend so much darn $ on trying to get better exposures if they all turn out the same with a flash/strobe?

From an exposure standpoint, I am saying that the 1/20 and 1/250 shots will be almost the same. That assumes that the room isn't brightly lit compared with the flash settings.

I'm not sure I understand the reference to spending more money. People spend money on flashes and quality lenses. People still work to get their exposure levels correct. They just do it by varying their flash output, their aperture, and their ISO. Varying the shutter speed doesn't change much of anything (except the ratio of ambient light tof flash, which should ideally go from very, very low to perhaps very low).

I am not saying you guys are wrong - jsut trying to wrap my brain around all of this to understand it. Especially since there really was enough of a difference when I upped the shutter from 1/200 to 1/250 - at least as far as the blown highlights and this was late last night without any other lights on in the room.

Jane I am with you - my head hurts now.

It sounds like it is time to do some controlled experiments. Set up the Bees in a relatively dark room. Put the camera on a tripod. Stop down the aperture to f/11 so that you can boost the power of the flashes. Take a series of shots at different shutter speeds and compare them. They should come out almost exactly the same until you start having sync speed problems.

I don't know why you saw such a big difference between 1/200 and 1/250. The only explanation I can give is that the non-flash light in the room made up a significant part of the exposure. If that is the case, you'll want to do something about it because the non-flash light is probably a different color than the flash light (white balance problems) and it is acting as yet another light source with it's own direction, shadows, hardness, etc. The advantage of flashes is that you can carefully control your lighting. Having take into account ambient light makes that a bit harder.

 

[AndrewWG]

Well, I did it, I looked at the AB website. It had to happen someday, so I figured I may as well take a look. I did notice that I most likely don't have the power necessary to safely use multiple AB's at once. Perhaps I do, but I'm not so sure. My electrical system in this house needs to be upgraded in the next year, so I will plan accordingly! Here is what the site says for the power requirements:

"AlienBees and White Lightning lights draw an average current of 6 Amps during the recycle period. Thus, if a light were fired every time it recycled, the average current draw would be 6 Amps. At the beginning of each recycle, the lights draw a peak current of about 18A for about 200 milliseconds. This is well tolerated by household circuits and breakers. A typical circuit breaker will tolerate three AB or WL units in normal use. When the lights are idle and not being fired the current draw is essentially that of the modeling lamp - one to two amps per unit."

While that doesn't seem too bad overall, Would a 15amp breaker trip during that 200 milliseconds of 18A draw? Also, having more than 2 of these on a 15A breaker could cause problems, couldn't it? As most of my breakers are 15A and CANNOT be replaced (thus the necessary upgrade) I think I would have problems. It claims it would be ok, but I'm not too sure. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Either way, I will not be purchasing these anytime soon as I WILL be going for the new lens first. That would suit my purposes much more at this time. I do like the look and versatility of the AB's though!

 

[DVC Jen]

Andy - I don't know ANYTHING about electricity other than how to plug something in.

We are always tripping breakers this time of year because of the amount of christmas lights we have up. Every time our youngest DD plugs her hair dryer into this one outlet everything connected to the breaker goes off.

Now with that said - I had all four lights up and running yesterday. One as a main light, one as a fill, a hair light and backdrop light. I didn't trip anything. I have no idea if not having any of the lights at more than half power had anything to do with it.

 

[SharonLowe]

Or are you saying that a photo hand held at 1/20 is going to be the same as one hand held at 1/250? OR is it just the exposure that is basically the same. And if that is true - why do so many people spend so much darn $ on trying to get better exposures if they all turn out the same with a flash/strobe?

No, they won't be. The one at 1/20 second will show a bit of movement if the subject moved. It won't be much because 1/20 second isn't that slow. When I used my example of a slow shutter speed with flash/strobes, I should have used an even slower speed than 1/10 of a second to make the point. As long as the shutter is open, even with no light, it will record what it sees. People play around with it all the time - just do a google search or a flickr search on long exposure with strobes (or other lighting term). You will find whole groups over on flickr.

Jen - if you want a nice crisp shot, you should set your shutter at the max allowed for synching and then adjust the lights/your aperture to get a correct exposure. If you want to be creative and capture some movement, set your shutter speed at a much slower shutter speed. All of this becomes much easier to do when you have a light meter.

Mickey88 - Since Mark didn't quote Jen and his post followed her one about the 1/640 second image, I assumed he was talking about that one. Ergo, my comment.

 

[jann1033]

congrats on the bees Jen but i am studiously ignoring the rest of the posts

 

[Geoff_M]

so if this is the case why not always just set your shutter for 1/250 to get it as fast as your camera/strobes can handle - wouldn't this be ideal as far as making sure you get a crisply focused photo?

There's one major reason why you may want to use a shutter speed that's slower than the sync speed... If you are shooting in a large room using the sync speed may result in the non-lit areas in the back ground to look very dark. For example, if you're shooting in a church, the subjects may be properly lit, but the background will look like you're in a cave. Slowing the shutter down (though not too slow as to avoid blur) will allow the background to be a little more well lit with ambient light. However, you do also need to watch for major differences in the color temps in the two types of light (flash and ambient).

 

[DVC Jen]

Sharon - thanks I understand what you are saying and I probably will do some research on that subject when things slow down here a bit. I am really hoping to play with the lights a lot during the Christmas break.

Geoff - thanks to you as well. What you said made perfect sense to me in regards to the ambient light affecting the exposure. Kinda made a light bulb go off for me.

With the different light temperatures - won't doing a custom white balance help with that?

...so much to learn!

Janet - LOL thanks. You always make me smile.

 

[mabas9395]

Jen, I think a custom white balance will only work if the shot is evenly lit with the same color light. Think of this extreme where you have two Christmas lights, a red one and a green one. If you have only one light lit, you can set your custom white balance and get the correct color. But if the red light is illuminating DD#1 and the green light is illuminating DD#2 then there is no way both DD's can have the correct color. Because when you set your white balance you are telling it to compensate for too much red, but if you do, then the green side will be off. And vice versa.

The same thing happens to me when I use my flash in the gym in my church. We have flourcent lights with a yellow wood basketball floor, so my shots have a yellow cast. But my flash naturally has a bit of a blue cast (not that it can be noticed in most cases, but it is there). So without a white balance, my subject would be blueish and my background yellow. No matter how I set my white balance, something will be off.

I'm sure someone here will come along and correct my explanation, but I think this is essentially correct.

 

[mabas9395]

Deleted, tripple post.

 

[mabas9395]

Deleted, double post.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I think that all three of mabas9395 explanations are good. White balance adjustments assume that the light color is consistent throughout the picture. If it's pretty close (like sunlight creeping in through a window and light from a flash), it's probably not that big a deal. If it is a bright tungsten bulb and a flash, it can be a noticeable difference. Honestly, I wouldn't worry that much about the white balance issue. I'm just warning people not to make the mistake I've made several times of fiddling with my shutter speed to adjust exposure and wondering why it isn't working like I expect it to.

As for Geoff_M's comments about looking like a "cave", I agree. When you are trying to mix flash and ambient light, you do need to watch your shutter speed because it will affect that balance. For pure studio shooting, you usually want to maximize your control over your lighting and that usually means minimizing the ambient light.

I'm not saying that the usual movement rules about shutter speed don't apply. You still need a high enough shutter speed to counter camera shake and subject motion. You just don't want to use shutter speed to adjust the light your taking in from your flashes.

I'm no expert, so don't take this as gospel, but what I typically do is pick a fairly narrow aperture (usually f/8) and a relatively fast, syncable shutter speed (usually 1/200), and a low ISO (usually 100), and then adjust my light levels by adjusting the power of the lights. You could also adjust light levels by moving the lights closer or farther from your subject, but that affects the appearance of the light as well as the amount. I try to control as few variables with each setting as possible. For aperture, that's sharpness vs diffraction along with DOF control. With shutter speed that's motion control. With ISO, that's noise. With light position and modifiers, that's where the light hits and the hardness/softness of shadows. With light power, that's exposure level.

 

[SharonLowe]

Jen, I think a custom white balance will only work if the shot is evenly lit with the same color light. Think of this extreme where you have two Christmas lights, a red one and a green one. If you have only one light lit, you can set your custom white balance and get the correct color. But if the red light is illuminating DD#1 and the green light is illuminating DD#2 then there is no way both DD's can have the correct color. Because when you set your white balance you are telling it to compensate for too much red, but if you do, then the green side will be off. And vice versa.

The same thing happens to me when I use my flash in the gym in my church. We have flourcent lights with a yellow wood basketball floor, so my shots have a yellow cast. But my flash naturally has a bit of a blue cast (not that it can be noticed in most cases, but it is there). So without a white balance, my subject would be blueish and my background yellow. No matter how I set my white balance, something will be off.

I'm sure someone here will come along and correct my explanation, but I think this is essentially correct.

You can set a "custom" white balance in almost any situation as long as you do it with all the lights on in question, shoot an image of a white or grey card and tell your camera to use that as your white balance. In your red and green example, the lights are still the same type of light so they are emitting the same temperature of light regardless of their color. However, nothing will remove the red and green colors that they cast on nearby objects. That is different than white balance.

In your basketball situation, you could do a custom white balance but you cannot use the preset white balances to correct for the flash and fluorescent light sources because there is not a preset that covers both light sources. (I would not use my flash in that situation; you typically aren't close enough for it to make a difference. Then, you could use the preset WB for fluorescent lights.)

A really nice tool to have is an ExpoDisc white balance filter. You put it over your lens, take a shot (typically overexposed by about +1) and set your white balance based on that shot. Custom white balances only work if the lighting stays the same throughout the time you are using that custom white balance. It is a lot less expensive than the color temperature meters the high end pros use!

 

[mabas9395]

In your red and green example, the lights are still the same type of light so they are emitting the same temperature of light regardless of their color. However, nothing will remove the red and green colors that they cast on nearby objects. That is different than white balance.

I knew someone would come along and fix my "false doctrine of photography".

In your basketball situation, you could do a custom white balance but you cannot use the preset white balances to correct for the flash and fluorescent light sources because there is not a preset that covers both light sources. (I would not use my flash in that situation; you typically aren't close enough for it to make a difference. Then, you could use the preset WB for fluorescent lights.)

I don't actually take pictures of basketball games in our church gym, we use it for other things like church functions and cub scout meetings. But if I use a custom white balance and the neutral subject I use is in the "flash" light then the background that is in the "yellowish" light will have an odd color cast, or is there some way around that? And I don't generally use the presets, I shoot RAW and doctor it up in Lightroom (because I'm not good enough to get it right the first time).

A really nice tool to have is an ExpoDisc white balance filter.

What are the benifits of the ExpoDisc over say a WhiBal card?

 

[Lizziejane]

Sorry to hijack this thread Jen...but the whole white balance thing has me really confused. I have a couple of questions:

Sharon - you mentioned using a grey card to set a custom white balance. I thought you should use white? I thought a grey card was used to check for correct exposure? If you use grey, and tell the camera that anything grey is really supposed to be white, won't your whites be overexposed?

I'm TOTALLY confused about the relationship between color temperature and white balance. If I shoot raw, and use Lightroom, I have the option of adjusting the white balance - I can choose as shot, daylight, shade, flash, etc. If I choose daylight, Lightroom adjusts the temperature to something like 5500 or 5600, and it's presets also adjust the tint by +10. Choosing flash wb sets the same temperature, but without the tint correction. So my question is, is selecting your wb really the same as adjusting the temperature of your picture? And I know this is going to sound like a really stupid question - when choosing a wb in Lightroom, are you supposed to choose an option that best represents the conditions in which you were shooting, or the temperature you want as a final result?

 

[Metallicat]

One word....



WHOA!


These are amazing! I set them up and took a few shots of a kiddo - totally blew her out. LOL It was great.

I had my ISO set at 100 - my aperture at 5.6 and my shutter speed at 200 and it was still too bright. So I had to start turning off lights. Still too bright. So I had 1 800bee and 1 400 bee at 1/4 power and that was just about right.

Unbelievable!

With my old hot lights - I had to have my ISO at 400. My aperture at 5.6 if I was lucky and my shutter speed at 1/25.

These are awesome. If anyone is on the fence about investing in a good set of lights and you are really interested in portraits - go for the bees!

And - to make matters even better - my new Dell arrived today as well.

My old PC was dog slow and very frustrating. I got a Dell XPS and it is lightening fast.

I am loving life right now!


Hopefully I will have some time to use my lights and take some shots I can share here. I am really interested to see how they turn out with them really set up right and not just randomly placed around my living room.

I have a question about your new computer. I ordered my DH one of the Dell XPS's today for his Christmas present. say it runs fast? thats good because DH's computer is so slow its ridiculas.
I guess my main ? is did you get it on the estimated delivery date or did it arrive sooner or later? I am scared silly because my order says estimated delivery date is 12/24 I'm just hoping he will get it in time for Christmas. thanks!

 

[MICKEY88]

Mickey88 - Since Mark didn't quote Jen and his post followed her one about the 1/640 second image, I assumed he was talking about that one. Ergo, my comment.

both ideas were in the same post, if you reread it her coment about upping to 1/250 was after she mentioned using 1/200,

the 1/640 followed in a different comment..

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Sorry to hijack this thread Jen...but the whole white balance thing has me really confused. I have a couple of questions:

Sharon - you mentioned using a grey card to set a custom white balance. I thought you should use white? I thought a grey card was used to check for correct exposure? If you use grey, and tell the camera that anything grey is really supposed to be white, won't your whites be overexposed?

I'm TOTALLY confused about the relationship between color temperature and white balance. If I shoot raw, and use Lightroom, I have the option of adjusting the white balance - I can choose as shot, daylight, shade, flash, etc. If I choose daylight, Lightroom adjusts the temperature to something like 5500 or 5600, and it's presets also adjust the tint by +10. Choosing flash wb sets the same temperature, but without the tint correction. So my question is, is selecting your wb really the same as adjusting the temperature of your picture? And I know this is going to sound like a really stupid question - when choosing a wb in Lightroom, are you supposed to choose an option that best represents the conditions in which you were shooting, or the temperature you want as a final result?

You can use a gray card or a white card for setting the white balance. The important thing is that the card be absolutely neutral in color (not bluish-white, reddish-gray, or anything like that). The RAW conversion software (whether on your computer or inside the camera) will look at the grey card or white card and check to see how much red, green, and blue it has. It will adjust the picture so that the amount of red, green, and blue are identical in the white/grey card. It's actually better to use a grey card than a white card because a white card risks overexposure. If you overexpose the white card, the camera can't really tell what color cast it had.

If you use a white card for exposure, that will cause your camera to underexpose because it will think the white card is a brightly lit grey card. It will lower the exposure so that the white will look grey. Setting the exposure level and the white balance are completely different things.

Color temperature is the color of light emited by an object when you heat it. If you get it hot enough (think of a piece of iron heated by a blacksmith), it starts to glow. At first, it glows red. Get it hotter and it starts to glow yellow (like a candle). Get it hotter and it glows white. Get it hotter and it glows blue (like a blow torch). The color temperature is usually given as a number of degrees in the Kelvin temperature scale (which is like Celsius only with a different starting point).

Adjusting the white balance in Lightroom is the same as adjusting the color temperature AND adjusting the tint. White balance isn't quite the same as color temperature because that only covers shifts from red/yellow to blue. Light can also be tinted greenish or magenta. That's why you have two adjustment sliders in Lightroom. One is for the color temperature and the other is for the tint.

The Lightroom white balance adjustment is a little odd at first glance. The low numbers are on the blue end of the scale and the high numbers are on the yellow end of the scale. If you take a picture under an old fashioned light bulb (about 2,500K), you move the color temperature slider to 2,500. That makes the picture bluer to counteract that fact that the light at 2,500K is quite yellow.

To make your picture accurately reflect the colors of your subject under neutral lighting conditions, you should pick a color temperature and tint that match the color temperature and tint of the light you were using. Lightroom than balances everything for you. However, getting accurate neutral colors isn't necessarily what you want. For example, if you take a shot near sunset, your picture will have a warm light (which, just to be confusing, means that it has a lower color temperature). If you adjust your white balance to make it neutral, you'll lose that warmth. My advice is to adjust the white balance to suit your tastes and just make sure that you do it consistently.