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Eos 3 and studio flash


mick johnson

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If you have no experience at all I'd say don't do it. These things

aren't automatic and take some experience.

 

You hook up the flash to the PC socket on your EOS 3, shoot in

manual mode and meter the flash manually using a handheld

flash meter. If you have a Polaroid back for your camera you

could do a bunch of test shots first, otherwise it sounds like a

dodgy proposition, IMO.

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You'll need a pc cord and a flash meter. Set the camera on manual. Shutter speed on 1/60. Make sure the flash meter ISO is set to the same speed as the film. Set up your lights, and test fire the flash holding the flash meter where the subject will be . Read the aperture reading on the flash meter, and set the camera's aperture to that reading, then shoot. Obviously you can get a lot more refined than this, but this is the very basics.
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Hello all

I use a technique with my eos3 and self contained elincrom.

First you meter the general area with a flash meter and your studio

light. I usually and recommend that you meter the studio light 1/2 stop less than what you set in the camera. ( most of the time I like to shoot at f8, so I set the camera to f8 and I meter the studio flash at 56.5 on my meter) I generally use one umbrella and have it high over one of my shoulders.

 

Then mount a 550 on your camera, make sure you go into the

550's custom function 3 and change it to ttl from etl. this will show up in the lcd panel on the back of the flash. This is very important as the 550 ettl sends out a pre flash and will trigger you studio unit too early and throw off your exposure.

 

You will find the results are amazing and the recycling time on your 550 will be very fast, if you have to wait at all. The lighting will be 3d and look great, you then have a lot of freedom to move around without having to make more meter readings.

When you get really good at it you can set up multiple studio units and meter the different areas of the room an inrease/deacrease your aperture according to how close and how far your subject gets to the umbrellas. If you find that other people are using flashes and are setting off your units. I would recommend flash wizards, these are wireless transmitter/recievers that will communicate to your studio lights without using the standard slaves.

 

WARNING when plugging in and out of the flashwizards turn them off and your 550 as it will trip your 550 and dump a manual load, and perhaps do damage.

 

have fun and let me know about your results

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An earlier answer suggested a sync speed of 1/60. That's consistent with the EOS-3 manual, which says 1/200 with on-camera flash and 1/60 with studio flash. My experience with at least 2 brands of studio strobes (3 different Normans and one other--a loaner-don't recall the brand) is that 1/200 works fine. I'm not sure why Canon makes the distinction--makes no sense to me. FWIW, I once set 1/250 by mistake and lost very little of the frame.

 

-matt

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