Too much light - ND filters in studio?

<p>Hey pnetters,<br>

Just had several studio shoot over the holidays, was great fun. There were certain looks I was unable to create - I wanted to use my fast lens wide open at F2.8 for isolation purposes, but even with the lights tuned to minimum, it was still overexposing - iso was at 200 (Nikon D300). Would an ND filter be the way to go? I do not want to change the light/subject/background placement as it worked very well at F8.<br>

NB: At F8, I was firing my keylight (studio strobe) at less than half power, some were fired at 1/32 (studio strobes and speedlights). Setup was for low key and film-noir kind of looks. Darned strobes, now making my strobist style speedlights as powerful as candles lol.</p>

<p>Thanks!<br>

<br /> Regards,<br>

Alvin</p>

<p>slap a 3 stop (0.9) filter on the camera and go for it.</p>

<p>I would use a "natural" room light, It's always good to get away from the phony look of photo lighting. If you actually WANT to shoot at 2.8 you have a lot of interesting lighting options.</p>

<p>Using a filter is my last resort. In this case, I would try to shoot with a longer lens for isolation. If that can't be done, I would put ND gels on the flashes until I brought them down to where I needed.</p>

<p>I use ND filters on my studio strobes any time I need to dim them below the range of their control or dim them without affecting color temp.</p>

<p>I use ND gel from Rosco, purchased at my local theatrical lighting supply store, which I clip either to the 7" reflector of the strobes or onto the inner diffuser in my softboxes.</p>

<p>Putting an ND filter on the camera makes it tough to frame and focus, whereas putting the ND on the lamps doesn't affect the viewfinder.</p>

<p><Chas><br /></p>

<p>Good day everyone!<br /> Thanks for the advice :) I can't use natural lighting as this particular studio has very little of that.</p>

<p>John: Yup tried that with my 70-200vr @ 2.8, except that I couldn't get the correct exposure at f2.8 :(</p>

<p>Charles: Great advice on the nd filter on cam vs strobes. I'll speak to the operators about nd filters on the lights. They've got color correction gels but didn't notice the NDs... I'll ask 'em about it again.</p>

<p>Cheers!<br /> <br /> Regards,<br /> Alvin</p>

<p>"I would use a "natural" room light, It's always good to get away from the phony look of photo lighting."</p>

<p>Studio lighting, done well, can look completely natural.</p>

<p>I'm with Robert. Studio lighting well done can look even better than available light.</p>

<p>I don't try to shoot at F2.8 in studio even though my Canon 5D Mark II can go to ISO 50. I prefer to use flags and block the light to create isolation. I only light what i want to be seen rather than trying to isolate with the lens. Light falloff will crete the same affect as F2.8 by moving the light further away it will decrease its brightness. by moving the model further away from the backdrop it will make the backdrop darker and the subject more isolated. I have never figured out why I just don't get the brokeh look when i am in studio so I stopped trying and use ligh shaping and falloff to my advantage.</p>