Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I have previously shot with a continuous light softball and umbrella. Am now shooting with Alien Bee, which was super easy to set up. Am shooting with a Nikon 300s and a 17-55 mm F/2.8 lens most of the time. In order to get preferred light, I have the Alien Bee on the lowest setting of 1/32, and my camera settings are: 200 ISO, shutter speed 250, aperture 11 or higher, and exposure turned down to -3.3. I do have some ambient lighting usually on. If I turn my shutter speed higher, I don't capture all the image. If I turn my aperture down, the image is way too bright. It doesn't seem right to have the exposure dial set that low either. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for any help!

Try to lower you ISO from 200 to 100.

Higher shutter speed wouldn't be an issue when you were using continuous light but you cannot go over your camera's flash sync speed when you are using studio flash.

300S's flash sync speed is 1/250 and you will see a black bar if you go over 1/250..

Hope that work...

That makes sense about the sync speed, but it still seems I shouldn't have to put my exposure down to -3.3 and aperture between 9 and 13. I also can't find in the book what the cycle and track buttons do. Any help is appreciated!

You don't specifically say, so I'll ask- Are you in manual mode? With continuous light and your camera in one of the automatic modes, your camera is able to calculate proper exposure prior to opening the shutter. If you're using a studio strobe, it can't do this because the light isn't there until after the shutter opens. So, if you're not already in manual mode, give that a try.

Yes, I am shooting in manual. :)

The cycle and track buttons are not pushed in - does that make a difference? I don't know what these do.

Exposure is determined by ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. If you are in manual mode, you are determining the exposure by setting those specifically, so exposure compensation shouldn't be needed and shouldn't have any effect. And apart from the banding due to exceeding the sync speed, the shutter speed isn't really a factor when you use strobe lighting. Just set it to 1/200 or 1/250 and forget about it.

There's not really a "right" aperture to expect - it just is what it is based on shutter speed, ISO, how bright the light source(s) are and the distance from the source to the subject. Lowering your ISO and light power and using the maximum sync speed will allow you the largest aperture. If you want a larger one than that will allow, you'd need to move the light farther from the subject, diffuse the light, or use an ND filter. Or you could use a less powerful light.

The cycle and track buttons affect modeling lamp behavior. Cycle makes the modeling lamp go out when the flash fires and come back on once it has recharged. Track makes the modeling lamp brightness mirror the flash power. Neither of these buttons will have any effect on your exposure.

Review your images' EXIF info and see what the ISO really is. We have spoken with many a nikon shooter who thinks they are in ISO 200 (or whatever ISO they think they are using), when they are in AUTO ISO, and 200 is the minimum. I am not famililar enough with the Nikon system to know how the confusion occurs, but it is common.

If the camera thinks it is dark, as it normally would be, It will crank the ISO up to compensate, causing an over exposure.

? Are you talking about exposure comp?
If you're in full manual, this shouldn't be used.

You should also have a light meter (or a cybercommander which has a light meter function) so you know how strong to set your strobes for your aperture...

What's the distance between the flash and the model or subject?

I just did a measuring with a light meter with similar setting of yours.

B800 set to 1/32 of output
ISO200
Shutter speed 1/250
Approximately three feet from the D800, my light light meter reading was F9.0 or F10..

So if you lower your ISO setting to 100 ( 1 stop) then your F reading should be larger ( around 5.6 or 6.3)