richard_quindry

<p>Not sure about your Canon as I'm a Nikon shooter, but my cameras in addition to shutter and aperture priority have a control that can be set to consistently under / over expose in 1/3 stop increments from what the meter indicates to fine tune the results to the photographers personal preferences. I suspect that this control is on without your knowing it.</p>

<p>Rich Quindry<br>

Richard Quindry Photography</p>

<p>Thanks for the excellent review. It still leaves a big question up in the air for me though.<br>

Will the new heads accept my existing Broncolor reflectors and speedrings?<br>

Thanks,</p>

<p>Rich Quindry<br>

Richard Quindry Photography</p>

<p>Unfortunately, you can't translate watt seconds to a guide number. Guide numbers relate to a particular flash head / reflector combination. Watt seconds tells you how much energy is available to put out. <br>

Because studio lights accept numerous reflectors,softboxes, umbrellas, etc. and because each of them absorbs and distributes light differently (a highly silvered narrow angle reflector that concentrates the light over a smaller area, a 4'x6' softbox with a white interior and an interior baffle installed to even out the light, a bare bulb flash that sends light in almost all directions) the amount of light that reaches a subject 6 feet away can vary wildly.<br>

You need to either measure them with a light meter or study the histogram and image on the back of a digital camera to determine the proper amount of power to send to the flash head for a given aperture.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

<p>Richard Quindry</p>

<p> </p>

<p>It's tough to be sure, but it's my sense that they were shot by natural light. Perhaps some in bright rooms or by skylight through a large window in front of a black background. I base this guess on a few things - <br>

1 - Very shallow depth of field - some look like they were shot with the lens wide open. Flash usually forces you to stop down more.<br>

2.- A sense of ambient light with no strong shadows.<br>

3. - A sense of movement especially in the fur around the edges - due to slow shutter speed and some subject movement.<br>

4 - You could use continuous light either as a bank of fluorescents or by shining a hot light through a diffusion panel or shower curtain if desired to get something similar, but you'll probably have a greater fall off in light from one side of the subject to the other than Hiroshi has in his.<br>

Richard Quindry</p>

<p>I'm not happy with silver jewelry shot on white unless you make the background lighter in post-production. Think of the silver jewelry an a dull mirror. As such, it takes on the color and brightness of it's surroundings (what it's reflecting). I like the center parts of silver jewelry to be white (reflecting the light source) and the edges darker (reflecting the background). If you set up on white seamless (I like white formica), by the time you make sure that the silver isn't blowing out and your not losing important detail you'll find that the white background is dull and under exposed. I go into Photoshop and brighten the background without affecting the jewelry - the darker edges of the silver against the white background really makes it pop. Same for pearls. I have examples of both on my website - www.Quindry.com<br>

Richard Quindry</p>

<p>It could be a blown fuse or circuit breaker in the unit. I don't have that model Speedotron, but I have a couple of older packs and they each have white reset buttons on them, which I believe reset a circuit breaker.<br>

If that doesn't work, I'd call Speedotron. They have a very good and reasonably priced repair department, and they might even be able to help you over the phone.</p>

<p>Rich Quindry</p>

<p>Make sure your camera is not bracketing the exposures. There have been times when I've forgotten to turn off bracketing from a previous shoot and been baffled for a couple of minutes before figuring out what was happening.<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>I've used Broncolor lights for almost 20 years and can give this input.<br>

If you're shooting digital, you don't need a 3200 w/s pack or 3200 w/s lights. I have 3 - 1600 w/s packs and 5 heads. With digital, even using one pack dialed down in power I often end up shooting at f/16 (for products), f/11 for headshots. It depends on what type of subjects you shoot, the recycle speed you need etc, but the 3200 w/s packs are better suited to film in my opinion. When I shot 4x5 and 8x10 I'd often be shooting at f/45 for enough depth of field.<br>

Buy used or demo units as much as possible. I try to find very clean equipment on e-bay and have had very good luck. Many photographers are having a tough time and need to sell off this stuff at a deep discount. It's built to last and can be repaired. <br>

Broncolor offers a very wide range of accessories and light modifiers and put out very consistent intensity and color of light. The quality of the light from the standard reflectors is also excellent - a very smooth, even beam.<br>

If all you use is umbrellas and soft boxes, you may be better off with Dynalite. They are very good and in my opinion, made to a higher quality standard than Alien Bees.<br>

You might start out with one digital pack (like a Topas - they're great) for two heads and one older model pack for your third head.<br>

It's also useful to have a couple of packs for when you need lights placed too far apart to run off of one pack.<br>

You may e-mail or call me during the day if you have other questions. My contact info is very easy to find with a Google search.<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>I think what your talking about is on the Broncolor site (and maybe others).</p>

<p>Rich Quindry</p>

<p>Don't even think about lighting it. It's much too big and there is no place to hide your lights if you do expansive views. You also don't have the necessary experience to pull it off with lights. By all means shoot RAW with the available light and correct the color in post-production. Your life will be much easier and you can deliver very nice results that way. It's also allows you to work much more quickly and you won't be wiped out at the end of the day from lugging lights around all day. Raise your ISO as high as you can without objectionable noise and preferably use a tripod. Shoot a gray card in each scene and use it as a starting point in setting your white balance.</p>

<p>Rich Quindry<br>

www.Quindry.com</p>

<p>Use a polarizer - realizing that you'll have to shoot from an angle (not head on) for it to be effective.<br>

You might also be able to shoot at twilight with the camera on a tripod so that the window is bright and what is being reflected is much darker.</p>

<p>Rich Quindry</p>

<p>Have you checked both units to make sure you're on the same channel?<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>I had a similar problem once and was also told by Hasselblad repair that everything was fine - only later to have a job messed up when using portraits with shallow depth of field were out of focus. <br>

I ran more tests and sent it back - finally Hasselblad this time verified that there was a problem.<br>

The mirror has a foam? padding to absorb shock and that it rests on. It disintegrates with age, causing the mirror to sit in an incorrect position.<br>

This is my best guess for what the problem is.<br>

Take some photos of a ruler running 45 degrees to the camera. Focus on the middle of the ruler with the camera on a tripod - shoot wide open. Study with a loupe to see where the camera is focused to confirm if the focus is off.<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>Certainly you can buy the latest and greatest if you desire, but if you're used to using those units and they work for you, there's no real reason to change.<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>I've read it and thought it was excellent.<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>I don't believe it's gels at all. Either paint on the wall or Photoshop.<br>

RIch Quindry</p>

<p>Looks to me like it might be a Larson reflector. I used to use them back in the 70's. I'm basing my guess on the support system.</p>

<p>Rich Quindry</p>

<p>Nathan,<br>

I'm not certain about the theory, but electronic flashes output a clean spectrum of light without gaps. It's very close to, but quite the same as sunlight.<br>

For maximum color accuracy with any light source (shooting digital), shoot a neutral gray card and balance to it.<br>

Flashes vary somewhat in color temperature, and are also affected by light modifiers (umbrellas, soft boxes, etc) and the age of the flashtubes and the coatings on them.<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>This is just how cameras "see". They can't handle the high contrast that our eyes handle. Just place your subject in front of a window with shears over it so the light is soft and smooth. Try different exposures until you get one with detail in the whites. If the shadows are too dark you can use a white sheet or foamcore to lighten up the shadows. If the shadows are too bright, use some dark surfaces on either side of the camera to bring the shadows darker. <br>

The wider the window behind the model, the more light will spill onto her face and back. If you want more light of her face, back her up closer to the window edge.<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>I'd graze the light across them from a small light source and use a mirror on the opposite side of the coin to kick back some additional highlights.<br>

Here's how that type of lighting was used by me to bring out detail in very old shipwreck coins that were very worn.<br>

http://www.quindry.com/product24-advertisingprap.html<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

<p>It looks to me like one small light source was used, close to and slightly above camera to the right.<br>

I'd use black duvetyne fabric about 6 feet behind the subject to make sure it remains pure black.<br>

Rich Quindry</p>

Not sure I totally understand what your trying to ask in the first post. As far as the blinking highlight indicator, I don't own

a D700, but can't imagine that they would drop something that is so useful to so many people.

I think you can probably set it up in your camera's customization menus.

As far as the dark piano - the histogram just shows the relative quantity of each tone in your image. If your subject is

large and has primarily dark tones then your histogram will be very heavy on the right. I look to make sure that the

histogram isn't stacked up on the left side. It should taper off to almost nothing at the left edge. If you can't do that

without losing information on the right side of the histogram, you need to add light (or in the case of a dark shiny piano,

provide something bright for it to reflect.)

One of my clients is a piano manufacturer and I have a before and after lighting shot of one on my website if you want to

take a look.

Rich Quindry

I agree with Mike. I've shot professionally for over 30 years. I have a color meter. Now that I shoot digital I never use it.

Shoot RAW, Shoot a gray card in each lighting situation (I like QP Card - it's white, black and gray). Adjust the white balance in the raw

files to the gray card.

Rich Quindry

I found the manual.

Rich Quindry