Alien bee has arrived - silly question time!

[JonScott]

To avoid seeing the reflection of your on-camera flash, hold a white business card up to the flash and reflect it up or otherwise away from the framing area. The Bee will sense the flash for the trip, and you won't get the direct inline flash problems (like redeye).

Cheers!

[Paul_Ferrara]

It's E-TTL that fires the pre-flash. TTL does not use a pre-flash. But you can't use either with a studio strobe. Get a flash meter.

Paul

[C_J_Samples]

Kurt,
So what was the final fix for your lighting troubles? Just so We can say " oh yeah.....I thought it could have been that...."

Chris

P.S. nice cat picture over there on that other post. Dpreview would be proud. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Kurt_Gearheart]

So sorry.

Simply got into the "flash" menu and set it to manual.

That's all - boom - the camera's flash now consistently fires the Bee.

Next was making a custom piece of paper to tape to the camera body to deflect the flash away from subject but still allow the slave on the Bee to "see" the camera's flash.

No flashmeter as of yet, but simply taking a shot, reviewing the exposure, then adjusting the f-stop (or moving the Bee) has worked just fine.

Even at 1/32 power I can leave the shutter at 1/500 (fastest D70 allows) and still have to stop waaaaaaay down from my beloved f/1.8.

One trick (that most should know already) is to ensure, if anything, a slight underexposure if unsure about the exact exposure.

Fairly simple to adjust curves later to bring out the "pop", without ever having any blown out lost pixels at 255.

Of course, AlienBees hasn't shipped my beauty dish and diffusion sock yet - out of stock - so when that comes in, that'll stop down the light quite a bit.

I'll get beyond my addction to shooting at f/1.8 in the near future - it's just that after years of point and shoots, being able to shoot at f/1.8 is like taking a hot shower after having to use cold for years. It just feels good!

This is a serious revolution for me - I fully expect to drop jaws here with the next batch of (non-cat/people) images.

We shall see.

[LarryAB]

With that big B1600 you'll be hard pressed to get back to f:1.8. When you get your beauty dish, that will help as it eats up quite a bit of power. You might try several layers of diffusion material over the dish to help cut back the power some more.

Tell ya what, I'll trade you my B400 for your B1600 straight up. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

BTW, I'm jealous that you can sync at 1/500. I can only go to 1/250 and there are times when it would be nice to be able to cut the ambient light down another stop.

lb

[Kurt_Gearheart]

[ QUOTE ]
With that big B1600 you'll be hard pressed to get back to f:1.8. When you get your beauty dish, that will help as it eats up quite a bit of power. You might try several layers of diffusion material over the dish to help cut back the power some more.


[/ QUOTE ]

Better than that! One reason I went for the "big gun" is so I can create a large frame over which I can try various diffusion materials, which may be somewhat thicker than "photography quality" diffusion materials, and still get enough light through to work with, especially when combined with very wide apertures - such as the 85mm f/1.4 that haunts my dreams.

Combine: massive light, thick diffusion panel, wide open apertures... bake at 1/500, serve with unsharp mask... oh, never mind, need more coffee!

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[LarryAB]

Ahh yes... Here's the business end of Canon's 85mm f1.2L. A serious and expensive chunk of glass. If Nikon's is at all similar it will haunt your dreams now and your wallet later.



It's a bummer that AB's dish is on backorder. I must have got one of the last in inventory as I just bought mine a few weeks ago. I love it.

AB B800 + beauty dish + Vagabond:

[Kurt_Gearheart]

RE 85mm f/1.2 and a Vagabond- I hate you.

Not really - just joking! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Seriously though, Nikon only makes a manual focus AI-S 50mm f/1.2 - no 85mm AF f/1.2 - damn them!

They have a 200mm f/2 that looks yummy though... although perhaps not $5000 worth of yummy. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

Gotta get me a Vagabond too... and a Pocket Wizard... and...

My wallet wants me to stop thinking now, it says it's getting a headache. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Nice shots btw... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[R_Fredrick_Smith]

1. For working without a flash meter, just use a gray card. Set the lights, guess the starting Fstop, then shoot the gray card full frame. Look at the histogram. If there is a spike in the middle, then you have the correct fstop. If not, adjust fstop, and shoot again till you get the spike in the middle.
2. When shooting, I work for an Fstop that will push the histogram as far to the right as possible without clipping the highlights. This allows for more details in the shadow areas.
3. Sometimes you do want to shoot wide open if doing soft effects (black scarf technique, etc). In that case you either dial down the lights, or add a ND filter to the lens.
Cheers,
rfs

[Kurt_Gearheart]

[ QUOTE ]
For working without a flash meter, just use a gray card.

[/ QUOTE ]

DOH!

[ QUOTE ]
or add a ND filter to the lens

[/ QUOTE ]

DOH!

Thanks! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]