 Youhan |
Studio Lighting for Digital Photography I have a Canon Digital Rebel. I am using the Canon Speedlite to trigger the tripod-mounted studio flash and soft box. I have gone through the whole range of aperture settings on the lens in the full auto mode as well as in all the program modes on the camera. All I get is white. I have also tried all options for the AWB setting on the camera. When I do the same using only the Speedlite, the results are acceptable, considering it is a camera-mounted flash. What am I doing wrong?
|
|
|
|
||
|
Jon Close |
Like other digital SLR systems, the dedicated speedlight for the Digital Rebel uses a low-power pre-flash while the shutter is still closed and mirror down for the evaluative meter to read and set the flash exposure. Digital cameras are not capable of TTL flash exposure. I'm guessing your studio lights are triggered with an optical slave that is firing them with the shutter-closed pre-flash instead of during the shutter-open main flash. To get around this, you'll need to either connect the studio lights directly with PC sync cords and a PC/hot shoe adaptor, or use a non-dedicated flash in the hot shoe (such as a Vivitar 283) to trigger the optical slaves.
|
|
|
|
||
- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
You're overexposing with the soft box. You need to get off auto and program modes because your camera is just going to determine exposure for your single dedicated flash, and the soft box just adds too much extra light. Use manual, and go through the apertures to find which one is the best with the soft box. If the soft box were going off from a pre-flash, I don't think they would recycle in time to shoot again when the shutter opened. If that were happening I would think the pictures would be dark. I would also think that them going off with an exposure determining pre-flash would throw off the exposure because of the extra light, making them dark.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Leah Marshall |
The photos are definitely overexposed. We just have to figure out why. ... It sounds like the camera is setting the exposure based on the speedlight and not being adjusted for the studio flash. Are you sure it is set for wireless transmission to only trigger the studio lights and not actually being used as the main flash? Are you using a flash meter? What I recommend for foolproof exposure is to use a flash meter for the exposure, set the camera on manual mode, and make sure the speedlight is only triggering the studio lights. I also recommend, like Jon C., to use a PC cord and hot shoe adapter which are very cheap. If you use these, plus a flash meter, and are setting the camera manually, you can't go wrong. Good luck!
|
|
|
|
||
|
Keana Clay |
I also have a Digital Rebel and I had the same problem about two weeks ago. To resolve my problem, I purchased a safe sync. It's by Wein and it's called Safe Sync Hot Shoe Voltage Regulator. It's about $50 ($49.95 at www.bhphotovideo.com). This will help save your camera by keeping the voltage from the lights away from your camera.
|
|
|
|
||
|
- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
If you were doing the same thing as Youhan, it sounds like all that you did was put an attachment between the flash and the camera, which made it no longer able to read the flash as dedicated. I think you could have done the same thing by switching to manual mode.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Bobby W. Curry |
I also have a Digital Rebel and I had the same problem. What I did was purchase a PC Cord and PC Adaptor and use the full manual control (1/60 and F5.6 to F8.0). Great pictures.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Keana Clay |
I apologize, I left something out. I am not using a Speedlite to trigger my strobes, I am using a PC cord. That cord is attached to the safe sync. When I was using the Speedlite (in manual mode) to trigger the strobes, everything was too dark. I wasn't capturing the flash from the strobe, just the flash from the Speedlite. I should have made that clear with my first response.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Youhan |
Thanks, everybody, for the responses. I tried out the suggestion given by Jon, and it worked. I used an old non- dedicated flash that I had for my Canon AE1-P as a spare flash. It triggered the strobes perfectly and I got perfect pictures. I haven't had the time to go pick out a hot shoe with a sync cord, but I guess that should work as well.
|
|
|
|
||
|
james |
Hi, been there done that. The camera is smart, but in this case you need to do the thinking, go to manual mode, meter your flash.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Tom Fry |
I have tried the Digital Rebel with a Nikon PC Hot Shoe adapter. It worked, then it didn't then it worked and then it didn't. Will this Safe Synch Voltage Regulator help? I am totally frustrated. I have to resort to my FE2 to shoot for now. Thanks.
|
|
|
|
||
|
This old forum is now archived. Use improved Forum here
Report this Thread |
||