Flummoxed...

[Orbster]

I was doing a shoot (unsuccessfully) this evening with my GF on her balcony with my Elinchrom rig - a beauty dish as key light and a white brolly as a fill light and no matter what I did the images were still really dark.

At one point I was shooting at 2.8 1/50 and ISO 800 with both lights turned up to 6.0. Under normal circumstances these settings would result in almost whited out beyond belief pics. The ambient light was failing to dusk and I just can't for the life of me fathom why the end result was quite so dark as I've done shoots on the beach using speed lights and PW's with good results. The speed lights are obviously a fraction of the power of my Elinchrom lights.

Am I missing something so basic here as to be blindingly obvious to anyone else?

Many thanks in advance.

Matt.

 

[HoppyUK]

Strange. Either the lights were way too far from the subject, or the flash heads were not actually firing at full power, or you weren't actually shooting at f/2.8 iso800.

Suggest check lights under known conditions, and check lens aperture function.

 

[ChasG]

Lens cap still on?

 

[Orbster]

Lens cap still on?

Ha, most amusing

The lights were mere feet from the subject so not far at all. The only thing that I did any different here was due to me forgetting my PW's, I was relying on the slave function of the lights and using a speed light as a master.

That said, I can't see that it would have had any effect seeing as the burst of flash is a fraction as long as he shutter is open.

Confuzzled.

 

[ChrisHeathcote]

Ha, most amusing

The lights were mere feet from the subject so not far at all. The only thing that I did any different here was due to me forgetting my PW's, I was relying on the slave function of the lights and using a speed light as a master.

That said, I can't see that it would have had any effect seeing as the burst of flash is a fraction as long as he shutter is open.

Confuzzled.

This could be why. Was the Speedlight in TTL or manual. Reason being speed lights fire a pre flash which will often fire the strobe, by the time you take the picture the strobe has finished but the speedlight still fires. Try setting the speedlight to manual.

 

[Barrysprout]

Sounds like the initial ttl burst from the speedlight is what was triggering your elinchroms and therefore the lights have finished before your shutter has opened.

 

[Orbster]

That would make sense.

Thanks guys. It had to be something simple.

Much obliged.

 

[HoppyUK]

This could be why. Was the Speedlight in TTL or manual. Reason being speed lights fire a pre flash which will often fire the strobe, by the time you take the picture the strobe has finished but the speedlight still fires. Try setting the speedlight to manual.

Sounds like the initial ttl burst from the speedlight is what was triggering your elinchroms and therefore the lights have finished before your shutter has opened.

Yes.

 

[mike weeks]

simple test when this happens, point camera at lights and take a photo, you will soon see if they are working

Mike

 

[markmullen]

Depending on which Elinchrom lights you can set them up to fire after a number of TTL preflashes, CP0 in the menus of the Ranger Quadras learns how many pre-flashes to ignore.