Studio Lights Sync Speed

gman

gman

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Graham
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Are studio lights restricted to 1/200 or 1/250 shutter speeds?
 
Ah, b****r. What about the high speed sync, can that work with studio lights? Reason I ask, if what if you are using studio lights without a backdrop and you want the background blacked out....but you also want the DoF of say f1.2. How would you do it as I don't reckon 1/250 would be fast enough to remove the ambient light.
 
Nah Graham, unfortunately studio strobes won't work with HSS. Can't you remove all ambient light from the studio and shoot at the lowest ISO @ 1/250th?
 
gman said:
Ah, b****r. What about the high speed sync, can that work with studio lights?
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No.

gman said:
Reason I ask, if what if you are using studio lights without a backdrop and you want the background blacked out....but you also want the DoF of say f1.2. How would you do it as I don't reckon 1/250 would be fast enough to remove the ambient light.
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If you can shoot at that aperture at your max sync speed in the studio and it's all black, then you can get a shot with a flash lit subject and a black background.

Turn the lights off & close curtains, blinds etc = No Ambient

Move subject well away from background / Flash closer to subject and turn flash power down - Inverse Square Law

Make sure flash doesn't light background - Common Sense Law

Turn ISO down = Less sensitivity

If you can't shoot at your chosen aperture without flash and get a black background, you're not going to get it black by adding flash.

You could go to ND filters though.......
 
It's definitely a problem if you use pro studio flash, as often you can't turn them down lower enough to enable you to shoot wide open. Time to get the speedlites out!
 
JasonRS said:
Or buy a Nikon with an Electronic shutter (D40/60/70) my D70s syncs all the way to max shutterspeed (there are other downsides though)
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Before someone rushes out and buys one, the D60 has a 1/200 sync speed, it's the older D50 that doesn't...
 
Flash In The Pan said:
You need to read up on the inverse square law, Graham. Here's an easy guide
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Cheers for all the replies, I understand the principle etc of this but was thinking that surely increasing the shutter speed would have been the most direct and simple method for removing background (if you need the wide aperture) as I can't imagine very many occasions where you need a slow shutter speed for studio work.

Right....I need to find a good portable studio setup now... :D
 
Hows about trying to get rid of as much ambient as possible, use the lowest iso and 250th but instead of shooting the flash.. just use the MODELLING lamp if you have one.. you should be able to adjust it too.. iv done this on the past and it works very well.. the only thing you need to watch is the WB but thats an easy fix in post if you shoot RAW..

HTH..
 
fraggle101 said:
just use the MODELLING lamp
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Give us a chance, I only just decided to buy some kit about an hour ago and the shops aren't open yet! :lol:

I think I'll wait until I've got some kit and see how I get on. Until then I'll get reading.
 
The problem is mainly the ambient light level, and the easiest way around that is to get the flash exposure to be at least four or five stops above the ambient level (the more the better) and then reduce the whole thing with a few stops of ND filter so that you are under the max x-sync speed.

Working with a heavy ND on board might make the viewfinder/AF difficult to use. Live view might help, but I don't think you've got that on a 5D.
 
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