scottconners

Because they have an electronic shutter, the D70 and D50 can sync with Nikon SB units up to 1/500, and can sync with any flash that isn't connected by TTL to any speed. You will find that it's possible to have the shutter close before the flash is done putting out light - 1/4000 and above usually, depending on the flash unit.

 

Most other DSLRs sync at 1/250 or 1/125.

I've had good luck with <a href="http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZamvona.com">the Amvona.com eBay sales</a>. Search for light stand, and watch the auctions that aren't buy it now. If you watch carefully, and check completed listings for general prices, you can get great deals. I got a PDK-1 10' stand w/ casters plus reflector holder boom that doubles as a boom for lighter weight lights for $60 to my door. Nothing with a boom comes close for that price, and I can't express how useful a boom really is (but probably not as strong as non-boom if you are out in a lot of wind often). The Amvona stuff is very well made for the price, surprisingly heavy walled tubing and decent fittings.

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How much wind effects you depends on your modifiers - a snooted SB is going to handle wind easily compared to a 48" umbrella or softbox. Be aware that you'll need quite heavy duty gear to hold a large umbrella or whatnot still in any kind of wind, plus lots of weight.

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The other option if you live in/near a city is to check out craiglist for used stuff, I see great old heavy duty studio stands on there pretty much every day.

Before spending hundreds of dollars, go to the hardware store, buy a $30 double head 500W halogen worklight. Take it into the room you intend to shoot in, turn it on, and start taking pictures of a living subject.

 

You should see very quickly what is meant by how hot these lights get, and how hard it will be to get a living subject sharp because of movement. You can always return the worklight, or if you like it you can keep it as a background light for you new kit. I think you'll be surprised how quickly a halogen light can heat up a room. The fan cooling only cools the light itself, for use with softboxes etc. It will not help the room temperature, it will just spread the heat around more quickly.

 

You can make your own backdrops out of canvas/muslin from any store with a little bit of work, and if you are handy you can even make the background holding system - there are a LOT of simple ways to hold up a piece of muslin or canvas, that don't require expensive stand setups, especially if you don't need it to be very portable.

 

If you are worried about the background stands, you can get an Amvona.com background kit for under $100. Add that to a pair of Alien Bee 400's with large softbox and 4' umbrella, and you have a similar price as the kit you linked, but with MUCH more power and flexibility.

 

You haven't said what camera you are using, but as long as it has a hotshoe on top you should be able to trigger strobes. If you are using a point and shoot without a hotshoe, then it might not be possible, but most decent cameras can either use hotshoe or a built in flash on manual mode to trigger studio flashes.

Forgot to mention, in dark night decent slave cells should work exceptionally well.

Yes, you can Y-jack the output of a radio trigger.

The image you show doesn't have much flare - do you mean backlit?

 

If so then:

Put your camera's meter on "spot" (or the smallest center weighted you have), zoom in or walk up till your subject's cheek fills the center point of your view, and read the light meter. Set your camera to manual with the settings your meter read. Fine tune by adjusting shutter speed up or down. If the sun or backlight is much brighter than your subject's face, you may need to use a reflector or flash/light to fill enough light to get a good exposure and still keep the background.

 

If you are trying to balance model and background in your picture, you'll need equal (or close to it) light on the subject and the background. In the photo you posted the background is lit equally with the actor's faces, and they have a nice strong hairlight (back light up high) pointed at that table, which separates them from the background.

You already own all the tools you need to shoot the photos and merge them using HDR techniques. Put the camera on a tripod and lock it down well. Then take a photo properly exposing the interior, and then take a photo properly exposing the windows. Then you just combine them in photoshop or a similar editor program. (the GIMP and GIMPshop (if you've used photoshop) are good free editors.)

 

There are also automated programs that will do the combining for you, but I don't know of a free one. Many of them have free trials though, so you could test the technique.

 

Search the forums/google for "HDR" and you'll find tons of info.

<a href="http://home.amvona.com/">www.amvona.com</a>. They also sell on ebay for quite a bit cheaper. Decent stuff, especially for the ebay prices.

Gaffer's tape is stronger than ductape, usually stickier, and releases cleanly, without leaving a residue (unless it's gotten hot or been on a long time). It also has a nice matte finish and is available in many colors, which means it's easier to hide in a shot.

 

Alien Bees are a great start into a home studio, they aren't built for the pro photographer who shoots all day every day at high power, but for a home user they are a great value. I don't think much else can compare at their price point.

Joe - Since you have that 220V circuit, as long as it's still safe to use (an electrician will be able to tell you), you probably have a lot of power ready to be tapped. It should be relatively easy to have that circuit broken into 2 110V circuits for your studio. Even better, often a 220V circuit will be a higher current circuit, offering 20A or even 30A per leg (2 legs).

If you're having to add over 2 steps of exposure compensation, you're underexposing. There are only 4 ways to change that:

1) Open the aperture up more

2) Raise the ISO

3) Lower the shutter speed

4) Increase the amount of light.

 

1 and 4 aren't free, so you're left with raising the ISO or lowering the shutter speed. If you need 2 stops more exposure, you'll have to raise the ISO from 100 to 400, or drop the shutter speed from say 1/125 to 1/30.

 

Since you are shooting with setup lights that don't change, you'll probably want to shoot in manual mode, with the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO all preset at the proper exposure. You can just adjust the settings until the exposure is correct, and if the subject and lights are placed the same, the exposure shouldn't vary.

You have 3 basic options.

 

1)Wired - use a "hotshoe to pc adapter" such as the Nikon AS-15 that adds the missing sync port to your camera. Very reliable, fairly inexpensive, but you have to plug your camera in with a wire, and stay within reach of that wire. If you just want to use your SB-600 off camera, you can retain TTL flash metering by using a Nikon SC-28/29, or get a longer version of one made by someone else.

 

2)Wireless using infra-red (light) triggering. Provides wireless triggering, and with your SB-600 will even give you TTL wireless triggering (no other option can do that) using Nikon CLS. Check your SB-600 manual for more info (play with this anyway before you buy a new light). It is susceptible to interference by strong lights, and requires that the light from a flash attached to your camera be visible to the off camera flash. A SB-600 on manual at minimum power will let you trigger a studio strobe with the built in slave most strobes have, and you will be able to point the flash away from the subject and towards the other strobe. Advantage: very cheap. Disadvantage: situational reliability.

 

3)Wireless with radio slaves. Mixed reliability depending on the expense of the wireless units. Pocket Wizards are the standard, but cost $190 each, and you need 2 to start. You get 1000 foot range, utter reliability, and industry-standard compatibility for that money. You can get a cheap set of wireless slaves on ebay for $30 shipped, but they may or may not be perfectly reliable, and they may have more limited range. Options like the Elinchrome skyports are mid priced, around $190 for a set. Advantage: wireless triggering, reliability. Disadvantage: reliability costs.

 

If you haven't experimented with the SB-600 off camera yet, you should. Its a great tool, and you can do it completely with parts you already own. You use the pop-up flash on your D70s to trigger the SB-600. Your manuals should have info about putting the pop-up flash into CLS commander mode.

Check out www.strobist.com for more ideas on how to use your SB-600 for studio type off camera photography.

As has been said, all you need to do is have your models take a step or three forward, and those shadows will disappear.

With a ballhead on your tripod you can easily focus and then recompose quickly and simply. If you use the AE-L button as AF-ON, you can autofocus, then just let go of the button, recompose, and shoot without having to switch MF/AF (if the AF locked where you want).

 

You might also consider having a focus light somewhere you can easily switch on and off - a simple hardware floodlight from above with it's cord dangling near you with a switch on the cord or a power strip for a switch perhaps?

 

It seems to me that if you are doing more than one portrait/model, as in school photos, that MF and a better light would be the easiest solution.

Flash isn't controlled by shutter, so you are probably underexposing ambient and lowering contrast and "pop" by "speeding up" the shutter. Try this:

 

Set the camera to a proper exposure for the scene. If the shutter speed is above 1/250 you'll have to adjust the aperture to drop the speed to 1/250 or below, or you'll get uneven flash exposure. In A, S or P modes, your camera will usually set maximum sync (or whatever you have set for sync speed in your menu) for you.

Set the flash to TTL BL -1.7. This tells the camera to expose for the ambient light, but use the flash at -1.7 (I generally adjust between -1 and -2 depending on the shot).

 

For more help than that, we need to see an example of what you don't like with shooting data.

You've discovered one of the major downfalls to continuous lighting for still photography Joe - it takes a LOT of power. Here's a quick way to calculate the power draw of your lights -

 

Power/Volts=Amps This means if you have 1000W running (your CLO4's)on a 115V home circuit, 1000/115=8.6, you're drawing a theoretical 8.6 amps (at 115V - most houses are around that). Adding longer extension cords can increase the draw, as the wire has it's own resistance that turns power into heat as it travels. So if you were running a 500watt starlight with your CLO4's, you'd be drawing a theoretical 13 amps, which should be fine in most houses (15A is a typical branch circuit size). However, if you had other things plugged into that circuit as well, or were running a 1000w starlight, 2000 watts total, you're looking at a 17A draw, which would trip a 15A breaker as it heated up.

 

There are lots of charts out there to help calculate this stuff, or you can make one easily in a spreadsheet - I have one in my toolbox so I don't have to calculate when I'm busy, I can just add up the lights plugged in and get a fast amperage draw estimation.

For learning the basics of studio photography on a slim budget, it's hard to beat the strobist route. Check out the <a href="http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html">lighting 101</a> for a really good intro to off camera flash on a shoestring budget.<BR><BR>

 

If you can afford a little bit more cash, alien bees are often regarded as one of the better budget/value brands out there. Definitely not "pro" gear, but quite effective none the less, and affordable for the beginner. <a href="http://www.alienbees.com/">Paul C Buff Alien Bees.</a> They have good kits, or you can build your own. On a budget, you can do a lot with a single light (B400 or B800) ona stand with a modifier (umbrella, softbox etc), and a cheap 5 in one reflector and a reflector stand. The advantage to the larger flash units is faster recycle time and more power.

A Wein "Peanut" slave is designed to do exactly what you are looking for. It's a small half dome optical slave that plugs directly into a sync cord. Should be about $20, and if they don't have the peanut model there are other models and you should be able to get adapters.

The way long exposure NR works is this: you take a shot, say 3 sec. at f8. As soon as the exposure is finished, the camera takes a second exposure of the same length with the shutter closed. It then subtracts that image from the original, reducing hot pixels and the change in colors etc that comes from sensor warming.

The major sacrifice is that the camera is unusable for the same length as the exposure, which can be an issue, especially with exposures over a minute long.

As to it's effectiveness, I've only used it a few times myself but it's worked well. I don't have any side by side comparisons of on and off, so I can't give you a good judgment.

If you want to bounce flash, and you ever shoot in portrait orientation, invest in the SB-600. It's much more versatile and powerful than the SB-400, as well as having a zoom head and manual controls. Buy a non-nikon brand TTL cord and the cash you save will help make up the difference.

You can use a pencil eraser or q-tip with alcohol to clean the lens/body contacts. If this is your only lens, it might also be worth your while to do a camera reset before sending it in - start with the two-button reset (look for the green dots on the two buttons, then if that doesn't work, try the full reset button (I think it's on the bottom of the camera on a D80. Possibly inside the battery or CF door.) If that doesn't do it, it's probably time to send it to NIkon, but if you have a camera shop locally you can try the lens and body with other body and lenses to possibly see which is at fault.

Get on over to www.strobist.com and check out the <a href="">lighting 101</a>. For lighting on a small budget it's really hard to beat a Vivitar 285 on a stand with an umbrella. Instead of Pocket wizards, use either a standard PC cable or ebay radio slaves (RD616 etc). That plus a reflector and you can probably come close to the images you posted, however it looks to me that the images you posted were taken with full fashion sytle lighting - lots of large, expensive lights. If you're shooting indoors and have time to fiddle, you can do very well with just a single light and reflector. You can get a strobist style wired kit for under $200 with flash, cable, stand and umbrella - <a href="http://mpex.com/Strobist/StrobistKits.htm">Link</a>

A D40 or a D80 with the 18-70mm DX lens will make fantastic pictures. The D40 lacks some features of the D80 and most other Nikon SLRs, but makes up for it in price. If you can afford the D80, it will definitely offer more flexibility down the road. The 18-70 covers a really versatile range, and is very well known to give great results for it's cost. <BR><BR>

 

If you're not set on the Nikon name, other brands might offer a more attractive option. If I hadn't already owned Nikon when I went digital, and it had existed, I'd have probably ended up with a Pentax DLSR. Very versatile mount, great functionality with very old, inexpensive but still (often extremely) good lenses, and priced great for a beginner. You can compare all of these cameras at <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=nikon_d40x%2Cnikon_d80%2Cpentax_istds&camsel=nikon_d40x&show=all">DPreview.com</a>.

The SB-600 is a GREAT intro speedlight. It permits full bounce use, off camera use with CLS, and is a really great flash all around. If you think you'll need the extra power, or the wireless control, or the su-4 (optical slave) mode, or the fast recycle time of the 5th battery, or you can easily afford it, get the SB-800 as it's definitely even better than a SB-600. For beginners and basic use, the SB-600 is really a great choice.

If I'm reading your post correctly, you want to have multiple studio lighting setups in one room going at the same time, and are worried that the optical slaves will interfere with each other. You are correct that they would interfere, but you can definitely just use standard sync cables and avoid the problem. Radio remotes work really great, but if you don't mind the wires, then you can use the same technology that the pros have been using since the advent of studio flash - a cable. Just get whatever style fits into your light's sync ports, and can interface with your camera. Most cameras have a PC style port, while strobes may have any of a few different types. If you give us the exact manufacturer and model of the strobes you want to use, we can tell you exactly what cords you'll need. You can get them at <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=search&A=search&Q=&ci=0&sb=ps&sq=desc&ac=&bsi=&shs=sync+cable&ci=2835">B&H Photo</a>.