Studio flash - My E10 never lies, but why can't I lie to it?

Hi again forum, it's been several months since my last confession lol.

I am having grief with my E10 and my Portaflash setup (I know Portaflash sux but it's all I can afford for now)

The thing is, I used to have Tungsten Lamps (always on) which I gave up on, no matter what I tried, a cheapo external flash gun always did better!

So I went out and bought myself a two flash Portaflash set up, rather than run before I could walk I tried with a single lamp plugged into the camera with the model lamp on and tried it on 'auto' settings - bad move, as far as the E10 was concerned it was too dark and set the shutter speed mega slow and the exposure compensation flashed errors. (the picture was way under exposed too)

Oops, forgot to say the scene! basic plant indoors around 1.8 meters away.

Ok I thought, over to manual, set the shutter to 1/60 and the aperture to f8 with manual focus, the E10 laughed in my face and give me an exposure compensation warning set to +3.

The picture was over exposed.

how can I stop the camera setting the exposure level? or am I doing something stoopid (again)

I really need to get this sortted as I want to do Portraits when I am used to my kit.

Cheers
Simon

In manual mode, the camera has no control over exposure -- but it still makes suggestions. Ignore these suggestions anytime you are using an external light source. You have to figure out the right camera settings for the power of your strobes. If your images are overexposed, close the aperture or turn the power down on the lights. If images are underexposed, open the aperture up or increase the power of the lights. Adjusting the shutter speed will make little difference (except for ambient light), unless you keep the shutter open for an extended period of time.

SimonD said:

Hi again forum, it's been several months since my last confession lol.

I am having grief with my E10 and my Portaflash setup (I know
Portaflash sux but it's all I can afford for now)
The thing is, I used to have Tungsten Lamps (always on) which I
gave up on, no matter what I tried, a cheapo external flash gun
always did better!

So I went out and bought myself a two flash Portaflash set up,
rather than run before I could walk I tried with a single lamp
plugged into the camera with the model lamp on and tried it on
'auto' settings - bad move, as far as the E10 was concerned it was
too dark and set the shutter speed mega slow and the exposure
compensation flashed errors. (the picture was way under exposed too)

Oops, forgot to say the scene! basic plant indoors around 1.8
meters away.

Ok I thought, over to manual, set the shutter to 1/60 and the
aperture to f8 with manual focus, the E10 laughed in my face and
give me an exposure compensation warning set to +3.

The picture was over exposed.

how can I stop the camera setting the exposure level? or am I doing
something stoopid (again)

I really need to get this sortted as I want to do Portraits when I
am used to my kit.

Cheers
Simon

Click to expand...

--
dgrogers

http://www.pbase.com/drog

Wow that was fast!

Ahhh I see, all I seen in my view finder was a flashing '3' and thought it was maxxed and wanted to increase, I'm also glad you made the point about the shutter speed as I was a little unsure and would rather use a faster speed in some cases.

Thanks
Much appreciated
(damn I love this forum!)

SimonD said:

I am having grief with my E10 and my Portaflash setup (I know
Portaflash sux but it's all I can afford for now)

Click to expand...

===
Hi Simon
I also have a Jessops Portaflash kit. It's not too bad...

I also use my E-20 in various hire studios. 99% of my photography is done with studio flash. I've been doing it for about a year as a hobby. I just got in from a 4 hour glamour shoot today, actually.

===

SimonD said:

Ok I thought, over to manual, set the shutter to 1/60 and the
aperture to f8 with manual focus, the E10 laughed in my face and
give me an exposure compensation warning set to +3.
The picture was over exposed.

Click to expand...

===

In Manual Mode you do sometimes get the blinking + -3 symbol. Just ignore it...

The 'ideal' settings I have found for a studio shoot are:

M - manual mode
Shutter speed 1/125 ( I hardly ever change this)
Aperture usually F8 (depending on lighting pattern)
Autofocus works fine for me
White Balance 6500k

If you can afford it you could invest in the Jessops Flashmeter (or any flashmeter). I have one. It costs £60 and does the job.

Re-post if you have more questions...

An E-20 studio flash shot:



Regards

Paul
--
Paul Jones
http://www.pauljones.org
Olympus E-20

Even better!

Thanks Paul, as for the portaflash kit I am probably a bad workman blaming my tools lol, but that advice will help me more than you will ever know!, I have a six hour glamour shoot booked next Saturday in a studio, my first studio shoot in fact as all my previous work has been done from home, so my problem needed sorting outwell before then, otherwise all that time would have been wasted.

just 2 further questions:

My style needs to include as much detail as possible, background included, will those settings be OK within say a 3 meter distance?

secondly, (this is where I sound dumb) how will a light meter help me if the camera is already set up? is it confirmation or do you need to adjust settings a lot?

Cheers again
Simon Davies
http://www.pbase.com/simond/e10_pictures
(Very impressed with your work and web site btw - well done)

SimonD said:

Even better!

Thanks Paul, as for the portaflash kit I am probably a bad workman
blaming my tools lol, but that advice will help me more than you
will ever know!, I have a six hour glamour shoot booked next
Saturday in a studio, my first studio shoot in fact as all my
previous work has been done from home, so my problem needed sorting
outwell before then, otherwise all that time would have been wasted.

just 2 further questions:

My style needs to include as much detail as possible, background
included, will those settings be OK within say a 3 meter distance?

secondly, (this is where I sound dumb) how will a light meter help
me if the camera is already set up? is it confirmation or do you
need to adjust settings a lot?

Cheers again
Simon Davies
http://www.pbase.com/simond/e10_pictures
(Very impressed with your work and web site btw - well done)

Click to expand...

first, to determine what your main (key) light is set at (or to adjust it to what you want). Then use the flash meter to set your other lights. THEN set your cameras f/stop to your main light ( again shutter speed is pretty much irrelevent, unless you are also including some ambiant light which is probably not likely in a studio setting).

To include light in the background from the main and fill, light distance from the subject is the important factor. For example: light fall-off behind the subject will be much greater at f/8 with a three foot distance (light to subject) than it will be at f/8 and six foot distance (light to subject). So after your lights are set at the subject, remeter at the background to see how much fall-off you have.

Hope this helps some.

George
http://www.pbase.com/law

I set my camera to your advised settings and the one I kept overlooking was the colour temp, I had always tended to trust the auto as when I had played with this whilst using tungsten lamps I had always made it worse, so as you advised I set it to 6500 and took a few test pictures of my cat (not a very glamourous model but very cheap!)

The picture was the best I have ever had in my house!

http://www.pbase.com/image/13534960

I have a pale yellow silk emulsion painted wall which up until now had never been able to get the colour right in artificial light.

Thanks again
Simon

SimonD said:

I set my camera to your advised settings and the one I kept
overlooking was the colour temp, I had always tended to trust the
auto as when I had played with this whilst using tungsten lamps I
had always made it worse, so as you advised I set it to 6500 and
took a few test pictures of my cat (not a very glamourous model but
very cheap!)

The picture was the best I have ever had in my house!

http://www.pbase.com/image/13534960

I have a pale yellow silk emulsion painted wall which up until now
had never been able to get the colour right in artificial light.

Thanks again
Simon

Click to expand...

Simon,

Glad that I was of some help to someone! Sorry about the white balance thing, I just assumed (I know). By the way, I like a WB setting of 5500 under my Calumet Travelights. For an interesting experiment, try a stuffed animal, or something like that (white preferrably), under your lights and shoot a shot at each of the WB settings but leaving all exposures the same. You'll be amazed.

George

SimonD said:

My style needs to include as much detail as possible, background
included, will those settings be OK within say a 3 meter distance?

Click to expand...

If you need a properly exposed background for background detail, you need to dedicate a strobe to light the background.

SimonD said:

secondly, (this is where I sound dumb) how will a light meter help
me if the camera is already set up? is it confirmation or do you
need to adjust settings a lot?

Click to expand...

A light meter will tell you what your camera settings should be to get proper exposure (this should also help separate the subject from the background). You can then play with the settings to get different effects.

You should also set custom white balance to get the most accurate color.

Have you tried the lighting and technique forum yet? There's a ton of info available there.

--
dgrogers

http://www.pbase.com/drog

SimonD wrote:
I have a six hour glamour shoot booked next

SimonD said:

Saturday in a studio, my first studio shoot in fact as all my
previous work has been done from home, so my problem needed sorting
outwell before then, otherwise all that time would have been wasted.

Click to expand...

=====

Hi Simon

If it's a well-run studio they will be used to assisting 'novices' so will be happy to provide all the help that you need.

If you're unsure about how to setup the lights just be honest and explain to the studio technician the kind of lighting effect that you are trying to achieve and he will be able to show you how to set the lights. I've picked up most of my lighting 'know-how' from picking the brains of experienced studio people.

I've photographed in several studios and they usually fall over backwards to help you and make sure you get good shots. (If you're happy and you get good photos then you'll want to use that studio again).

With it being your first glamour shoot don't forget to keep the model/s 'entertained' - keep talking to her and letting her know that she's doing a great job. Aim to build a rapport, get the model working with you and you'll get some great shots.
=====

(this is where I sound dumb) how will a light meter help

SimonD said:

me if the camera is already set up? is it confirmation or do you
need to adjust settings a lot?

Click to expand...

=====

You're not dumb - you're just asking questions to find the answers.

As others have replied, a lightmeter/flashmeter helps to take away a lot of the 'guesswork' for studio lighting.

Studio lights can be adjusted to give out certain amounts of light. When setting up your lights you can instantly check the lighting levels with the use of a meter. You can use this information to set the aperture on your camera.

Without a meter, the other way of doing it would be to take a series of test shots with your camera set at different apertures and then check each shot on the LCD screen with the histogram displayed. This would give you an indication of which apertures were resulting in overexposed and underexposed images and which aperture was the correct one to use.

I would recommend you getting a meter if you intend to pursue studio photography as a serious hobby. As I said earlier, I use the Jessops basic meter, which works fine for me - though there are dozens of different meters to choose from.

For your forthcoming glamour shoot don't worry if you haven't got a meter with you as the studio will certainly have one or more lying around.

One more thing - even though I use a meter I ALWAYS take a couple of test shots at the start of the shoot and check the histogram. I do this to confirm that the exposure is correct. Once I'm happy I delete the test shots and carry on with the shoot. You wouldn't want to fire off a couple of hundred shots and find out that every one of them was over/under exposed.....
=====

SimonD said:

(Very impressed with your work and web site btw - well done)

Click to expand...

=====

Thanks very much! Let us know how your first glamour shoot goes.....

Good Luck - and enjoy it!

Paul
--
Paul Jones
http://www.pauljones.org
Olympus E-20

Just a quick note to say how I got on.

I followed the advice given here (especially Paul's) and I am simply over the moon with the results!

I took the best part of 900 shots (after a 2 hour drive 6 hours solid shooting and no food - it's a tough life haha) and only about 7 of them were bad, and they were only bad for a couple of dumb reasons (for example I forgot to put the sync lead in when I moved studios lol) the rest were superb.

I am scratching the 'P' mode off my dial switch now lol

After reading a few books I never really understood how to get the setting correct, a few questions in here and I am far more confident.

So a huge thanks to all that have helped me, and a huge thanks in advance for all the questions I am sure to ask in future ;o)

I will put a few of the result up in my http://www.pbase.com/simond galleries tomorrow (agreed you may not find them top quality, but to me they are 70% improved on my previous attempts)

Cheers again
Simon Davies