Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I havent used my alien bee in several months and now that I am using it I am getting a very strange result - even though the modeling light shows the entire frame being evenly light, when I actually fire the flash there is a very strong drop off in light even within the frame. The top half of the frame is well lit, but roughly the bottom half is very dark. This happens whether I shoot bare bulb or with a soft box and even placing the light only 2 ft from my subject. I wonder if maybe the bulb needs to replaced? I've never had this issue prior so perplexed and would love any help. Thanks in advance.

It sounds like your camera is set to an exposure time faster than it's max sync speed. The camera must be set to manual and the exposure time should typically be set between 1/125 and 1/250 second. Most DSLR cameras are limited to about 1/250 second max susnc speed with studio flash. Faster than this will cause the black bar across part of the frame. This is a camera issue and has nothing to do with the lights.

You are absolutely right, thanks so much. Clearly I've become rusty in not using the flash for many months. Thanks again.