Shooting in a Studio - What camera setting

donkeymusic

donkeymusic

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Hello,

Have just been watching some video clips on the Lastolite website by mark Cleghorn and the usage of the Hilite.

He seemed to be firing through shots and wondered would he be using manual or even auto focus?

I guess manual for his settings, fair enough but he seemed to be moving back to, too much to be manually focusing each time.

Any ideas?

cheers
 
Auto for focus, manual for shutterspeed and exposure.
I change focus points depending on Fstop and where focus should be, epecially when changing from landscape to portrait position.
To focus and then change composition is not a good idea as the focus plane changes .
 
What pellepiano says is exactly what I would do but I do know people who like to manually focus. And I also know people who still like to shoot on MF cameras that don't have AF.

A studio is a controlled environment so you control it the way you want.
 
Agree with pellepiano, it's the method I use when shooting portraits with studio lights.

BTW, just had a look around your site pellepiano, inspiring and very creative, particularly liked 'The Giant Women' gallery.
 
Been testing this in my make do studio and set the camera to Single -Shot AF, is this what is meant by "single AF point selection"? if not could someone describe to me, please?

Also whilst in the studip, i was using the auto focus and it seemed to struggle on whites, looking at examples of studio work there are lots where the subject has a white t shirt on, so how does the focus work with this?

As well, if its single point focus ahow does that work group shots? where do i point the focus at the get it all in focus?

thanks, still learning so any help is much appreciated.

Thanks
 
Single -Shot AF meens you only take 1 shot even if you held the shutter down.
"single AF point selection meens you pick just 1 focus point, if your photographing people the point thats nearest there eyes.
if its single point focus how does that work group shots -often you arange the group so there close togather then use a small apeture say f8 or f11 to give good DOF .
This will help keep everyone sharp.
Rob.
 
just read my maual and had a look on the camera and found the correct option and changed that to spot, will test that later,

thanks
 
donkeymusic said:
just read my maual and had a look on the camera and found the correct option and changed that to spot, will test that later,

thanks
Click to expand...

Spot? As in spot-metering? Why?

The exposure will be determined by the flash output, not by the camera measuring ambient light.
You can either use a flash-meter - expensive, if you haven't already got one.
Or by trial and error using the histogram on the camera - takes practice but you soon get the hang of it.
Set the camera initially to f/8 with the correct flash-synch speed on the shutter (which is usually anywhere below 250th on modern cameras - it doesn't matter as long as it's below the maximum as the flash-duration effectively is the shutter-speed with regard to studio-flash) and the flash output on your main light to about 2/3...then adjust the aperture and flash output from there.
Remember that exposure with studio flash is governed only by the flash output and camera aperture, not by the camera's shutter speed - all that will do is allow more or less ambient light in, which you don't necessarily want.
 
You've lost me - is that a Sony-specific setting?
With Nikon we have the option of specifying the number of AF points available - between 9 and 51 as I recall, but unless you opt for auto-detect which uses all 51 focus points simultaneously with face-recognition, blah, blah, blah, then the AF always works off one focus point initially, which is selected beforehand.
 
not sure to be heonest but that was setting i found on the camera, dont how that relates to other cameras.
 
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