I've noticed a trend towards less and less studio work and more and
more location work where you take the studio to the set.
I have some battery powered studio lighting (BOWENS) and I make a LOT
of use of ambient daylight. And I try to over expose the backgrounds a
little for modern "Trendoid" lighting.
These days the pix must look as unstructured and unconstructed as
possible. Authenticity is the keyword.
I bang a 6 foot softbox on a light, turn it down to "0" where it gives
me around f:4 up against the subject. An additional 4x6 foot
scrim/reflector on a C-stand for fill so it's softer than soft
(I often have to use ND filters) then I balance the background with
shutter speed. Early morning/sunrise looks like mid-morning. You
couldn't have done this stuff with film... you'd have a nightmare
getting the colour right.
But that's the look and feel that get's me work here and in Dubai,
which is a sophisticated market.
herschel
On Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:05:13 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
On 27-Mar-10 07:54, herschel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > any idea on flash duration for these?
> > I have a bunch of studio lighting but it's all 240V.
> >
> > I'm moving to the States around August and I'll look for a little
> > commercial work
> > I must weigh up the option of selling and re-buying with getting all the
> > transformers changed.
> >
> > I find that with digital SLR (Even my full-frame) I almost always have
> > too much light to get the shallow DOF I need (Min ISO 200)
> >
> > But some lights have a ridiculously long flash duration (650th) and I
> > need high-speed to capture blur-free movement.
>
> Yes, generally studio strobes are fairly long-duration at full power
> (though mostly they go under 1/1000 sec. at the low end, and you're
> talking about having too much power).
>
> Hey, the flash duration info on the AB400 is at
> <http://www.alienbees.com/specs.html>, measured two different ways
> (duration over 50% outputp and duration over 10% output). They behave
> the reverse of everything I've seen before, longer exposure at lower
> power. But the AB400 gets down to 1/2000 second over 10% output at full
> power; not nearly as fast as an SB-800 can go, but decently fast I think.
>
> It's a big change to have ISO 200 as the MINIMUM you use :-), I think it
> was like ISO 100 max previously, with 64 fairly common and some 25 in
> the studio (I know I shot K25 in the studio some). And with
> medium-format gear we mostly needed a much smaller aperture than we want
> today. So we don't need the kind of power we used to need (if we're
> using a DSLR in the studio now).
>
> I don't know about legalities here, but it's perfectly possible to wire
> your studio space with 240V and just change the plugs on your existing
> units -- if they don't mind 60Hz instead of 50Hz, anyway. In fact if
> the cords are detachable, and you can find a 240V rated US 240V plug to
> the right other end, you might just swap cords. Given international
> shipping, you might be better off selling and buying something new here
> though.
>
> --
> David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/
> Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
> Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
> Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
>
>
