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Thread: studio lights and expusure

  1. #1
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    lethabo diale

    studio lights and expusure

    Ola, I just got my first set of studio lights and have found that the I tend to loose a lot of colour in my images can never get the colour of subject correct I use a canon 500D.

  2. #2
    JPS's Avatar
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    Re: studio lights and expusure

    Hi Lethabo,
    Welcome to CiC.

    Would you kindly give us some more details of the studio lights you have? This will help us to give you a more informed answer.
    As you may or may not know different light sources have different 'colour tempretures'.

    Color temperature is conventionally stated in the unit of absolute temperature, the kelvin, having the unit symbol K.
    Color temperatures over 5,000K are called cool colors (blueish white), while lower color temperatures (2,700–3,000 K) are called warm colors (yellowish white through red).
    Depending on your lights and your set-up, this could well be contributing to your problem.
    Also can you let us know your camera settings and post one of the pictures you are not happy with.
    With all of this information in front of us, I'm sure between all of us we will be able to help you.
    John

  3. #3
    Loose Canon's Avatar
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    Terry

    Re: studio lights and expusure

    Ola Lethabo and welcome to the Board!

    Have you considered using a gray card for your white balance reference?

    Maybe post a shot or two that you are concerned with so everyone can have a look and see what you have going on with your lights?

  4. #4
    Moderator Manfred M's Avatar
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    Manfred Mueller

    Re: studio lights and expusure

    It would be helpful if you posted some of the images so that we can see what the problem is. If you are "losing colour", my first guess would be that you are overexposing and washing out the colours in your shot.

    Studio lights are 100% manual and you should be shooting with your camera in manual mode with your shutter speed at or below sych speed. Your studio lights will have to be set to the correct light output too. Check your histogram for proper exposure. Shooting a test swatch would be useful too. I find that much more useful when diagnosing colour issues versus a grey card.

  5. #5
    rpcrowe's Avatar
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    Richard

    Re: studio lights and expusure

    There are many varieties of studio lights which range in color from reddish-yellow (approximately 2800 Kelvin) of some continuous tungsten varieties to daylight colored (aproximately 5500 kelvin) of some flashes. Throw in LED and flourescent varieties and we are covering a large range of color.

    However, it doesn't matter what color your light sources are if you shoot in RAW and use a white balance target, such as the WhiBal ( see this link http://whibalhost.com/_Tutorials/WhiBal/01/ ).

    Another posibility that might compromise your color is if you are overexposing your images. If you are using a continuous light source such as incandescent, flourescent, LED or any other continuous source, you can pretty well determine your exposure with your in camera meter. Using studio flash, you will either need a flash meter or try to determine the correct exposure by making a series of exposures, viewing them on a computer monitor and determining the best exposure. If you are using hotshoe flashes with through the lens metering, you can nail the exposure that way. Using manual hotshoe flashes, you will need to determine your exposure in the same fashion as you would using a studio strobe...

    By the way the kelvin temperatures of light sources were originally determned by actually heating a bar of material until it reached the color of the light and then measuring the heat of that object and expressing the heat in kelvin degrees. Take a piece of metal and start heating it and it will first turn red and then turn different colors through blue as the material gets hotter.

  6. #6

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    Re: studio lights and expusure

    Gray card is certainly one "must have" thing, when You are using flashes. With flash leave exposure 1/125 and aperture
    and ISO are option for manipulation. Some flash with full power is 1/200s some flash 1/800s. Those are exposure values, when You are using flashes.

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