using lighting in the studio

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jasonBristolUK

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Jason
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Hi all
I'm going to sound like a right amature now which is because i am but i've set up a studio that i normally just do video with with my NEX-VG20 digital video camera. The 3 studio lights also have flash sensor built in so I thought I would give them a try with my sony ned-vg20 and try and take some pictures. I've never used a flash before, but when i take picture everything is almost all white, just far too bright. is there a reason why this is?

Thanks

jason
 
Frey said:
What are the setting on the lights and camera?

Where are you positioned in relation to the lights?

Also are you shooting in manual or auto?
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I normally have an umbrella a metre each side of the camera and a light facing the background for video, each light is about 2 metres away from the target. I've kept it the same for the flash lights with the photos for now. and based on your comment i tried it from different places but i still get that nuclear explosion effect each time.

The photos i take with the light set to just model lighting with no flash are seem to be good. As i'm new to flash i don't quite see the benefit a flash is supposed to bring at the moment.

I've currently got the mode set to auto. but i've tried playing around with the shutter speed which doesn't make any difference. i'm new to the world of photos.

I think i'm doing something fundamental wrongly.
 
Set your camera to manual, set the shutter speed to 1/125th and then experiment with the lens aperture.

With it set to auto as it is now, the camera is metering for the continuous lighting only - it doesn't know that there's a flash connected and the camera meter can't read flash anyway, so it is grossly overexposing your shots.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Set your camera to manual, set the shutter speed to 1/125th and then experiment with the lens aperture.

With it set to auto as it is now, the camera is metering for the continuous lighting only - it doesn't know that there's a flash connected and the camera meter can't read flash anyway, so it is grossly overexposing your shots.
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Thanks for the advice. I did what you said and it has helped. I lowered the ISO, shutter speed and closed the aperture.

One problem is that my viewfinder and the camera screen show a black image because of the result of the changes. I'm not sure if the changes are what the camera can see or maybe it's showing me it thinks the picture will look like if you use these settings. Is there away around this?
 
Remember that flash is a strong very short pulse of light, and much more powerful than when the lights are in continuous mode.

A whiteout means far too much light is getting into the camera..... So you need to reduce it. As the pulse of light is almost certainly going to be shorter than your shutter speed, you need to control the amount of light entering the camera principally with the aperture.

However your shutter speed needs to be slow enough that the time it takes for the flash to fire ensures that the shutter is open when the flash fires- if you speed your shutter up over successive shots you will discover your camera's sync speed . Eventually you will get an image that is partially or totally obscured by the shutter, but because the flash is still shorter than the speed of the shutter, the exposure will remain almost identical in the successive images as the amount of light entering the camera while the shutter is open remains virtually the same, dependent on how much ambient you have around.

Your viewfinder problem sounds like too little light while you are setting the shot up.
 
jasonBristolUK said:
Thanks for the advice. I did what you said and it has helped. I lowered the ISO, shutter speed and closed the aperture.

One problem is that my viewfinder and the camera screen show a black image because of the result of the changes. I'm not sure if the changes are what the camera can see or maybe it's showing me it thinks the picture will look like if you use these settings. Is there away around this?
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It sounds like a setting on the camera to mimic the exposure. If you tell us the camera make someone might be able to help. Or you could try the camera manual?
 
Phil V said:
It sounds like a setting on the camera to mimic the exposure. If you tell us the camera make someone might be able to help. Or you could try the camera manual?
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Sony NEX-VG20.

The problem is their live view system. Even compare to its previous model, its been a bit confused with different conditions. It was more an issue with their initial SLT range. The only fix I found was to use video lights with this model, same with the VG10. I suppose you would need to work blind to really find the right exposure required to work with the lights.
 
Teshi said:
Sony NEX-VG20.

The problem is their live view system. Even compare to its previous model, its been a bit confused with different conditions. It was more an issue with their initial SLT range. The only fix I found was to use video lights with this model, same with the VG10. I suppose you would need to work blind to really find the right exposure required to work with the lights.
Click to expand...

I'd probably have technical issues to get around if I wanted to use my camera to shoot primarily video. The issue is trying to use a device for something it wasn't designed for.
 
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