300D - Group Studio Portraits - What do I need?

[neitherside]

I'd like to practice family portrait photography as I have 24 hour access to a studio at a camera club. I intend comparing results from a few carefully prepared shots, with the results of letting the group charge around the place while shooting off dozens of images. I believe there is a synchronisation problem between the club lights/flashes and digital cameras.

I'd like a 1D but I can't afford it just now.
I can afford a D10 body with either a lens OR a spare battery

I think what I need is a 300D and appropriate accessories.

For about a 1 hour shoot to large print quality (assume grainy effects on a white background) what kit will I need for a budget of about £1500. I already have EF 80-200mm and 20-80mm lenses.

What memory?
What batteries? two or three? What kind?
What flash?
What lens?

For this application would I need an external meter?

I'd really appreciate an answer to this one folks as I can't afford to get it wrong!

Also, if anyone can suggest the suitability of the new Sony 8 Megapixel for this task too, I'd be very grateful.

[Malaxos1]

I have a 300D and have been using it for portraits and group shots. I have also shot products that will be featured is Hotrod Magazine. I have a few weddings coming up and feel very good about using the Rebel. What I would get for a flash is the 550EX. I ave the 420 but it doesn't have flash compensation and neither does the camera. The 550 will alow more control over that. The 18-55mm lens is not my favorite as the DOF isn't what I like for single person portraits, however f3.5 and more is suffecient for wide group shots. Also be aware that there is no PC chord available for this camera as well, so you will need either hotlights, slaves or Remote control. Either way it's a great camera and all of these tprobs can be worked out...Dean

[DaveG]

neitherside wrote:
I'd like to practice family portrait photography as I have 24 hour access to a studio at a camera club. I intend comparing results from a few carefully prepared shots, with the results of letting the group charge around the place while shooting off dozens of images. I believe there is a synchronisation problem between the club lights/flashes and digital cameras.

I'd like a 1D but I can't afford it just now.
I can afford a D10 body with either a lens OR a spare battery

I think what I need is a 300D and appropriate accessories.

For about a 1 hour shoot to large print quality (assume grainy effects on a white background) what kit will I need for a budget of about £1500. I already have EF 80-200mm and 20-80mm lenses.

What memory?
What batteries? two or three? What kind?
What flash?
What lens?

For this application would I need an external meter?

I'd really appreciate an answer to this one folks as I can't afford to get it wrong!

Also, if anyone can suggest the suitability of the new Sony 8 Megapixel for this task too, I'd be very grateful.



If you can swing the $ for the 10D rather than the 300D you'll be much happier after a month or two goes by.

As for this type of shoot I have ask if you have any experience shooting with studio strobes? This is not the kind of stuff that lends itself to candid shots around the studio. You have to meter the studio flashes - and meter them carefully. You need to establish lighting ratios, hair lights, and background lights to complete a professional looking lighting.

If you live in an area that's still warm enough to permit outside shooting, you might be bettter off using daylight with some fill flash. That DOES lend itself to candid photography.

A good beginnning lens is the 24-85 f3.5-f4.5. It'll give you wide angle to telephoto capabilities so you should be able to cover everything. A 512 meg CF card will be another good, first choice. If you buy anthing smaller you'll be wondering why within weeks. I think having two batteries - and I bought the Canon brand - makes a lot of sense. You can also get the BG-ED3 at some point to hold the second battery, provide a vertical shutter release and to improve the way the camera feels. But the BG-ED3 is for another day.

A 550EX or 420EX flash will give you all of the E-TTL flash capapbilities that the 10D offers. But with some common sense a Vivitar 283 or 285 will do wonderfully well and cost you about 2/3's less than the 550.

Mostly though, do more research into the studio strobe method of shooting, assuming that you have access to the studio's monolight or power pack strobes.

[Ruth]

I have used the 300D with bowens studio lights and you will need to underexpose by 2 stops to stop shots burning out. I found the same on the D30 which I swapped for the 300. There were no problems with connection to the camera with a hot shoe. I have also just shot a halloween party for the local scout troup with the 420 and found it perfect for candid shots.The reason for the change of camera was the weight and I have had some exelent results.

[DaveG]

ruth wrote:
I have used the 300D with bowens studio lights and you will need to underexpose by 2 stops to stop shots burning out. I found the same on the D30 which I swapped for the 300. There were no problems with connection to the camera with a hot shoe. I have also just shot a halloween party for the local scout troup with the 420 and found it perfect for candid shots.The reason for the change of camera was the weight and I have had some exelent results.

Does this mean that you've measured the light output of the Bowens with a flashmeter and gotten (say) f8. But if you use f8 it'll be two stops overexposed?

Something is going wrong somewhere if this is the case but I doubt that it's with the 300D.

[neitherside]

That's a lot of well thought out replies guys ... thank you.

Malaxos 1 - I now understand what you mean about the hot lights and slaves. A google session cleared up a few misconceptions and I'll take a look at units like the Digi-Slave ones which may address some of the club lighting issues. How would remote control help me? I'm sure it's obvious, but I'm still trying to get my head around the required set up.

DaveG - As you've gathered, I'm using this opportunity to get hands on experience of studio photography for the first time. I have a physics background so I know the theory quite well I think - what I need now is to get to grips with the tools and see how reality matches up. You've pointed out that "You need to establish lighting ratios, hair lights, and background lights to complete a professional looking lighting." The optimist in me is hoping that I can use hot lights and compensate for this in Photoshop afterwards until I learn the lighting craft. Does this sound totally unrealistic? I'm aspiring to pictures like these http://www.thisisventure.co.uk

Scotland in November is unfortunately about the last place where you'd like to go outside for portraiture : )
but maybe if I go for the D10 it'll be summer again when I can afford the lens (seriously).

One thing I'm sorely lacking in is common sense - do you mean voltage damage risks as described in http://www.botzilla.com/photo/G1strobe.html which suggests the 283 and 285 lie outside the design range for EOS voltages? Or do you mean that I can work round the missing E-TTL features? If so, I'll do a search to see what they are. I'm glad you think two batteries is enough. Does two batteries tie up well with the 512Mb CF card? I guess I'll need to visit a shop to see how long it takes to move that much information through a card reader onto a HDD.

I will certainly do some more research into the strobe method, but I would like to get my teeth into some photography while I'm doing it! : )

Thanks again for your valuable input Dave.

Ruth, I appreciate the heads up on the exposure issue. I'll need to play with the camera to see what the range is with this as I've also seen early reviews complain that the images from the 300D can be too dark in normal use. Does the design have a particularly sensitive patch in its metering which swings too far either way?

Your replies have given me a lot of food for thought guys, and I'll get back to you when I find out more.

[Ruth]

Yes we set the flash according to the meter and all club members with film cameras had good shots but on the D30 .the 300D and my dimmage 7i . also another member with the D30 have to set -2 to get well exposed shots. as long as we use this we get perfect exposure.

[DaveG]

ruth wrote:
Yes we set the flash according to the meter and all club members with film cameras had good shots but on the D30 .the 300D and my dimmage 7i . also another member with the D30 have to set -2 to get well exposed shots. as long as we use this we get perfect exposure.

I use the 10D with Multiblitz flashes and it's absolutely bang on with my flash meter.

My guess is that your flash meter is off and the colour neg prints are OK because it's so hard to hurt colour neg, especially if you over expose it. Try a roll of slide film and see how that works.

Let's face it, this has just about nothing to do with the camera. With your D30 if f11 IS f11 and the ISO 100 IS ISO 100 then the flash that's outputting @ f11 with ISO100 MUST give you the correct exposure. It's not like the camera is metering the shot.

The only other possibility I can think of is that you may also have set the wrong ISO into the flash meter or the camera.

[BruceMcL]

ruth wrote:
Yes we set the flash according to the meter and all club members with film cameras had good shots but on the D30 .the 300D and my dimmage 7i . also another member with the D30 have to set -2 to get well exposed shots. as long as we use this we get perfect exposure.

Well I suspect things could be standardized by figuring out the appropriate ISO to use with the flash meter much like we had to do with film.

Setting the camera to say ISO 100 and setting the flash meter also to ISO 100, I would make a series of tests varying from the indicated meter F stop up and down a couple of stops in half stop increments. That should soon reveal what ISO is appropriate for the flash meter. Doing it that way shlould eliminate any need to use compensation settings.

After I get a protective circuit to protect my Rebel from my White Lightening Ultra units I'm going to make a series of tests with the camera and the Minolta Flash meter IV to determine the correct ISO to use. Since you get immediate results with digital I think it should be fairly quick and easy. We will see.

Bruce

[JamieAU]

Hi neitherside,

I tried a setup with the 300D to see how it went using the ETTL on the flash and slaves and it worked rather well.

The setup worked out fairly cheaply with one large window softened by a sheer white cloth, a long thin gold reflector, the 550EX and two 420EX's for slaves.

By re-arranging things a bit you can get this to work well with most setups. and give quite spectacular shots on a small budget.

Jamie

[DaveG]

DaveG - As you've gathered, I'm using this opportunity to get hands on experience of studio photography for the first time. I have a physics background so I know the theory quite well I think - what I need now is to get to grips with the tools and see how reality matches up. You've pointed out that "You need to establish lighting ratios, hair lights, and background lights to complete a professional looking lighting." The optimist in me is hoping that I can use hot lights and compensate for this in Photoshop afterwards until I learn the lighting craft. Does this sound totally unrealistic? I'm aspiring to pictures like these http://www.thisisventure.co.uk

Hot lights are very dangerous and very weak. Can you use them? Yup. Are you or your subject's likely to get burned or get a fire started? More likely than I'd be comfortable with.

Portrait lighting isn't rocket science (or rocket science is quite simple). You start with a main light. That can be positioned anywhere you like but roughly 45 degrees to one side of the subject is about normal.

You need a second light that HAS to be positioned withing 20 degrees of the camera. This is the fill light. This way the light from the fill will fall on BOTH sides of the subject's face.

You set up the power of these lights (either by adjusting power settings or just by moving them in and out) so that the MAIN light is almost one stop brighter than the fill. Without going into the detail this "main is almost one stop brighter than the fill" translates into a 1:3 lighting ratio.

What does this mean? Well you have the main light coming from somewhere that's NOT the camera position. That means that's it's interesting light. The fill lightens up shadow, so the shadow has some detail in it. The difference between the highlight and the shadow is less than a stop so any film - slide, B&W or colour neg; as well as digital capture, will hold this latitude.

After that you add back lights, hair lights or whatever you'd like. But the meat and potatoes is the main and fill. Can this be any simpler?