Rotolights and normal flash.

[Photopaque]

Is anybody using both at the same time and if so are you getting good results. I am just curious as I have 2 rotolights and now a sony hvl-42 for on my a7. I guess I should just crack on and experiment but i was just wondering if anyone else uses this type of combination and had any tips for portraits.

 

[Garry Edwards]

I'm not sure that anyone will be able to help you on this, I think that you're a bit of a pathfinder and that you will be helping others.

I say this because the Company making them seems to be very good at marketing but I don't think that many people have actually bought them yet.

Personally, I will be interested in seeing what you can achieve, the products seem to me to seriously lack power and I'm not convinced that they are in any way suitable for portraits, but I'll be very happy to be proved wrong.

 

[HoppyUK]

Easy in theory, just drop the shutter speed until the much weaker light from the Rotolight balances with the flash, and balance the colour too. You may have to drop it quite a long way.

I can't see why you would want to do this though. Much better to use all flash and some properly designed light modifiers. Studio flash and speedlight guns work quite well together.

 

[Photopaque]

I got my rotolights for a good price of eBay. I will only really be shooting headshots so I don't really need a lot of power as I can have them quite near. It was more putting the feelers out for any advice or tips with anyone who has done similar. Will give it a go and see what happens.

 

[Phil V]

I got my rotolights for a good price of eBay. I will only really be shooting headshots so I don't really need a lot of power as I can have them quite near. It was more putting the feelers out for any advice or tips with anyone who has done similar. Will give it a go and see what happens.

I can't understand why you'd want to do it . The USP of the rotolights is that they're 'not flash', the advantage of flash is a huge amount more power. The 2 are designed as almost polar opposites, play with the rotolights and see where you get to, enjoy your purchase rather than opting for some frustration by mixing them with flash.

 

[Garry Edwards]

I agree with Phil.
The claimed benefit of the product is that it isn't flash, so the best thing for you to do is to experiment with using it as is, at the very close distances that you'll need to use it at to obtain the soft light claimed for it and to end up with enough usable power, and forget about using flash with it.

But, as Richard pointed out, if you do want to use it in conjunction with flash then you can, you will just need to increase your ISO setting and/or slow down your shutter speed to the point where the Rotolight will give the required exposure, the increased ISO will make even the lowest powered flashgun seem to be very powerful so you will need to turn the flash power down very low.