richard_quindry

I have two CL sets. I'm not sure if there is much that the manual will tell you. If you have any questions your welcome to

give me a call during the day or up till 9PM EST (Philadelphia). Contact info is on my website. Just google Richard

Quindry.

One thing I can probably tell you right off that you may not know. There should be two spare fuses stored in the handle -

pry up the rubber strip on top from one end - it will go right back in place.

The socket on the right side has a max power of 250 w/s.

The two on the left share a max of 1000 w/s.

Unless combined where all the outlets share up to 1250w/s

Clicks are 1/6 stop increments.

There's a switch on the bottom to turn off the beeping during recycle.

The connectors are made with very tight tolerences - the least amount of dirt makes them very tight. I always blow into

them before connecting them. Pull back on the collar around the connector to disconnect.

They're great units that I've gotten a huge amount of work out of.

Enjoy.

Rich Quindry

I also have both, having purchased an SB-600 for use using Nikon's creative lighting system with my SB-800. As soon as I

got it, I wished that I had sprung for another SB-800. It isn't quite as versatile, more importantly for me, it won't connect

with Nikon's SD-8A battery pack for quick recycling. I use that a lot with my SB-800 and love it.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

I agree with Michael. I use Broncolor lighting and love their equipment, but I wouldn't think of buying their softboxes. I have

10 Chimera lightboxes and have been extremely happy with the quality of the light they output and the quality of

construction. Get one of their Broncolor speedrings to use them with Broncolor. There are lots of them out there, so you

shouldn't have any trouble finding used ones.

RIch Quindry

www.Quindry.com

As the others have said - bad idea. It'll cause all kinds of problems. I recommend keeping the light "clean". As Tom said,

do it in Lightroom or Photoshop. In Photoshop, you can add a hue/saturation layer. For starters, you could set it so that

the master saturation control is set to -10 and then click on the drop down menu and select reds, set them to +15.

Vary to taste.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

The lenses that I use (CF) series don't do this. They do serve a purpose. Hasselbled lenses use the EV (Exposure

Value) scale to indicate exposure. When a lens is set for say EV2 it will show the different shutter and aperture speeds

that are equivalent. Then the equivalent exposures can be chosen from to get the best trade off in shutter speed and

desired depth of field. The longer speeds are just there for reference so that you know how long to hold the shutter open

on "B" at a given F/Stop.

RIch Quindry

www.Quindry.com

1) Get the model further away from the background (6+ ft if possible).

2) Reduce exposure

3) Aim the light(s) more at the model from one side and allow less light to hit the background.

4) Use the levels or curves adjustment in Photoshop to make the blacks deeper.

RIch Quindry

www.Quindry.com

In my opinion it's a composite - no doubt in my mind about it. There is no way that you could pull off the precision of the

placements in this image in one shot or have space to place lights. It's also heavily retouched - to the point that it's

difficult to tell where the real highlights fell as both highlights and shadows could have been moved if desired by the

Photoshop artist. I like it - it's very well done, but it is close to an illustration with the amount of Photoshop that has been

done on it. That makes it tough to make calls about what was done without seeing the originals that were used in the composite.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

I'd shoot it available light.

RIch Quindry

I wouldn't recommend trying to light it at all. Lights will only take away from the enjoyment of everyone there and

probably will cause more problems than they will solve. They will light the backs of the heads of those in front of you

much more than the subject. Also, your lighting if it did work would take away from the mood of the lighting on stage at

the concert.

In my opinion, you're much better off with a fast lens and high ISO. You should probably be able to shoot at about 1/30

of a second. A VR lens could also help.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

I do this all of the time. There are samples on my website. As mentioned above - set the camera to daylight. Use a

tripod. I usually combine two exposures in Photoshop, but I've been shooting architecture professionally for over thirty

years. When I shot film, I found that the best time was usually about 5-10 minutes after sunset. It depends on the

direction the building faces and if any surrounding objects (trees, etc) affect the light on the exterior. Since with digital it

doesn't cost anything to shoot more, I'd start a few minutes before sunset and take exposures every minute till about 15

minutes after sunset. You should be able to see when there is a pleasing balance between the interior and exterior. I

prefer not adding additional lights to the interior as I find they don't look "true".

Good luck and have fun.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

There are several possibilities -

a) Get the flash higher above the lens so that the shadow falls behind the subject and is hidden.

b) Move the subject at least 5 or 6 feet from the background so the subject falls further away/behind the subject

c) Use a light on the background

d) Some/All of the above.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

Try a "full CTO" filter.

RIch Quindry

www.Quindry.com

That sounds fine to me.

Rich Quindry

Advertising Photography

www.Quindry.com

I second for flash clinic - they charge extra for quick turnaround, but they're rates are reasonable enough to begin with

that even paying for rush service, they're less expensive than sending some other places. They've always done great

work for me.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

One thing that will help is a small brush to clean up the chocolates and around them. Also a hair dryer on low for a couple

of seconds at a distance will soften the chocolates and make them look creamy. (I wouldn't try this on the ones with the

shavings on top.)

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

Vincent asks an important question. If you're shooting film, a Kodak 18% gray card is what you want. If you want a gray

card in order to correct your colors in digital rather than for help reading exposures, you'll want a card that is

manufactured to much tighter tolerances to neutral gray than the Kodak card is (which was never designed for perfect

neutrality). There are several made. Many of them are much too small to meter off of, but excellent to include in the first

or last shot of a series under a particular lighting situation, to then click on the gray patch with Adobe RAW Converter or

RAW converter of choice to give proper white balance. I use QP Card 101's and have been very happy with them.

Rich Quindry

www. Quindry.com

Also, move your subjects a a few feet (the more the better) away from the backdrop so the shadows fall behind them and

are hidden by their bodies. Make sure the flash is above the lens. If you can get the flash off of the camera and get it

further away from the camera (and higher), the shadows will drop down behind the subjects better.

Richard Quindry

www.Quindry.com

I've had the same problem with the SB-800. The others are correct. You can make the SB-800 not go to sleep in the

menus. It's too complicated to explain here. Consult the manual.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

It looks to me like one light in probably about an 8"-12" reflector - just above the camera lens to the right or the left.

(different on the two images. The shadows have been manipulated at least in the one on the right because the shadow cast

by the face looks too large and does not follow the facial features.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

I've been doing this professionally for over 30 years and never heard of concerns or damaged equipment from high trigger

voltages before I purchased my medium format digital back. I believe that the circuits in slaves are much more robust than

some of digital cameras/backs.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

I'd go with strobe in daylight. If you're shooting towards windows, you'll mainly want the strobes to reduce the contrast of

the scene. Think soft fill light. You can use umbrellas or softboxes. Umbrellas are cheaper and easier to move around. Watch for

reflections of the lights in windows and glass over artwork. The brightness of the strobe is affected by the power you give them and your

aperture. the brightness of the sunlight outdoors and the available light from it is affected by the aperture and the shutter speed. So... if the

outdoors if too bright, increase your shutter speed. Aperture make both inside and outside get brighter or darker at the

same time.

One or two 1200 w/s packs with 3 heads should suffice. That way, if you are looking through a doorway into another

room, you can have a light in there also. You'll need to either use a slave that picks up the other flash's light to trigger

the second flash or a radio slave.

Brand doesn't matter much - get something small and light - you'll be dragging them around all day. Dynalite is good.

You can probably trust your eye on exposure - just watch your histogram. Watch you don't blow any important highlights.

Since you don't already own a light meter, you probably wouldn't know how to use it properly anyway.

It's best to take a laptop if you have it to evaluate images on.

Sometimes it's hard to see reflections of you flash in window areas since they're already so bright. Taking an exposure

where the outdoors is purposely underexposed makes it easy to pick up if anything is happening.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

Can you provide a link to an image or upload one?

Rich Quindry

When the lighting conditions are mixed you need to do your best to either color correct the sources that are primary to

each other or make one light source overpower the others.

Assuming that the chandeliers in the church are not the primary source of light on your subject, you can shoot with flash

and overpower the mixed lighting, or let a little bit of it mix back in at an underexposed level so it has less effect, but the

bride doesn't look like she's in a cave. You can also use daylight balanced lights for the video, but you lose a lot of light

that way and lights that give out good quality daylight are very expensive.

You can also put an orange (Rosco CTO) filter over the flash and convert it to tungsten balance.

I personally would shoot with flash with the camera set to underexpose the background slightly.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

www.EuropeArtPhotos.com

It's probably close to the same if not the same.

I'm curious - what types of subjects are you shooting that you're so concerned about the flash duration?

Also - what camera are you shooting with?

The reason I ask is this. I've been shooting with power packs for about 25 years. I have a 2400w/s pack, 3 - 1600's, 2 -

1200's and a 400.

I used to shoot 4x5 transparencies. A 4x5 camera gives far less depth of field at a given aperture as 35mm. I don't

remember the exact relationship, but let's say with 4x5 I'd get the same depth of field at f/64 as I would with f/16 on my

35mm. That requires tons of light in a flash or very slow shutter speeds.

With most people shooting digital with sensors smaller than 35mm film (and having even more depth of field), you don't

need much light. I'm more likely to have a problem powering down my lights for shallow depth of field than having enough

light.

Between the cost and the weight, I would probably go for a 1200. There may be a time when you want a 2nd or third

pack, but if you want light in two different rooms at the same time, a larger pack won't cut it anyway.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com

It's really not that hard once you wrap your head around what's happening. Think of it this way - what color is a mirror?

Well it could be white, black, red or anything else - it takes on the character of whatever it's reflecting. So . . . - you don't

light the mirror - you throw the light at what it's reflecting. Charles brought up a good point - if you want to bring out

engraving, or a texture in the surface, you combine it with a grazing directional light (think spotlight) to bring out that

contrast - in addition to what it's reflecting.

Rich Quindry

www.Quindry.com