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Wing_nut
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Great display Herman! Thanks for the effort!
Help with manual camera settings!
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I realize that this is now a very old thread, but Herman's tips just as current today as in 07, and are going to be a real big help in my learning how to use my new camera, which has manual settings and a strobe. A big change from my old point and shoot set up.
Since I can not THANK older posts, by clicking a button, I'm saying Thank You this way!
Since I can not THANK older posts, by clicking a button, I'm saying Thank You this way!
Hope it helps Jim. The best thing you can do after reading the above is to set up a test shot similar to the ones I did. There is no need to have the camera in the housing (assuming it's a housed one), the strobe and camera are all you need although having them on a tripod or table does help. Pay close attention to the histogram, it is your best friend when shooting manual. It's not hard to read and there are several threads on the board that go over what it means and what to look for.
Most of the time I use just the strobe power and shutter speed to control my shots with the F-stop as high as I can get it. There are shots this is not true for but it holds for 90% of them.
Most of the time I use just the strobe power and shutter speed to control my shots with the F-stop as high as I can get it. There are shots this is not true for but it holds for 90% of them.
Great advice Herman. Testing the camera like that is a fantastic way to learn settings.
One point I'll make, is that changing the F-stop and shutter speed by the same amount (e.g - 1 stop) will equally effect the background exposure. You seem to imply that shutter speed changes the background exposure more than changing the F-stop, and that isn't true. Great advice overall though!
Scott
One point I'll make, is that changing the F-stop and shutter speed by the same amount (e.g - 1 stop) will equally effect the background exposure. You seem to imply that shutter speed changes the background exposure more than changing the F-stop, and that isn't true. Great advice overall though!
Scott
I agree but as you can see in the second set of photos the change is not as dramatic as it is when compaired to changing shutter speeds as I did in the first set of photos. With the ambient light I had, which by the way mimics UW light fairly well, it was not possible to get deep blue or black backgrounds with F-stop alone with my camera. And if you use F-stop to vary the backgound, you must also vary the strobe power to compensate for the lighting on the forground. On the other hand changing shutter speed has very little effect on the forground due to the predomanance of the flash. Trying to keep it simple, I find it easier to leave the F-stop at one spot for most of my photos and vary the strobe power for exposure control since it have a very easy accessable knob as opposed to the two handed button push needed to change F-stop. That way when I go from a light backgound to a dark one, I only have to make 1 change (speed) and maybe tweek strobe power which is very easy to do as opposed to making 3 adjustments. Granted you can tweek F-stop to vary the the background some but by limiting the setting I change to shutter speed and strobe power it makes my life easier. I have 3 basic backgrounds I use most of the time, light blue (slow speed), med blue (mid range speed) and black (as fast as I can get it
) so suttle changes in my background are not a big issue for me. On the other hand, for a pro doing high quality work for sale, that becomes a differnet matter.
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