First Set of Studio Lights? How to use Constant Lights?

[alaine_mangabay]

<p>Okay, so for christmas I got the PB500 two light set up and it says that they are contant lights. I have never used constant lights before. Can anyone give me any tips on how to use them. I have taken a Studio Lighting class and I was used to connecting pocket wizards and adjusting how much power to use and all that. So with these constant lights, after looking at them, it looks like I don't adjust power and don't connect pocket wizards. Is this right? Sorry if this sounds like a dumb question, I really do know how to work with lights, just never worked with these constant lights. Any tips on how to use them would be great. I love that I got them and want to use them as soon as possible! Thanks!</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Essentially, they're just like specialized desk lamps. They're light bulbs. What you see is what you get. When you turn them on, you adjust your exposure by manipulating ISO, shutter speed, and aperture for overall exposure, and you work with light placement and modifiers on the lights to affect the ratio between them (say, to fill shadows with a stop or two less light than the key).<br /><br />Unlike with strobe/flash where (generally, in a studio setting) the shutter speed doesn't really matter as long as it's not faster than the camera's flash sync speed, you can use whatever shutter speed you want to arrive at an exposure you like. Your camera's meter will tell you you what's going on, since the light that you see while you're composing will be the same as the light that you get when you expose.<br /><br />You may want to do a custom white balance, or be sure to shoot a white balance card you can use as a reference when you do your post processing.</p>

[richard_cochran]

<p>Yep, you just set them up so things look the way you want, and then take a picture as though you were taking a picture in natural light (except that you may need to set white balance either to "auto", "tungsten", or "custom", but not to "daylight").</p>

<p>The problem you'll run into, especially if you've already been spoiled by studio strobes, is that you'll need a very long shutter speed. If you're photographing completely still subjects and the camera is on a tripod, that may not be such a huge problem, and may even be perfectly fine. But for photographing moving subjects like people, most continuous lights just don't put out enough light to give a reasonable shutter speed/aperture/ISO combination.</p>

[kevin_delson]

<blockquote>

<p>So with these constant lights, after looking at them, it looks like I don't adjust power and don't connect pocket wizards.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Yep..The PW are not needed since constant lights can't turn on fast enough.<br>

Some constant lighting can be adjusted via a simple variable resistor network...kinda' like a lamp dimmer.</p>