Ceiling lights in a studio.

[John Mac]

Setting up my own studio, size 23ft x 15 ft. Can anyone tell me the best ceiling lights to use and where to place them that wont affect my studio lighting?
Thanks in advance.

www.jmac.ie (http://www.jmac.ie)

[FlashZebra]

Setting up my own studio, size 23ft x 15 ft. Can anyone tell me the best ceiling lights to use and where to place them that wont affect my studio lighting?
Thanks in advance.

www.jmac.ie (http://www.jmac.ie)
In general, under most flash exposures used for general photography of human beings in a studio, almost any sort of ambient light you use in the studio will be fine.

The tiny amount of light from the room lights, compared to the huge amount of light from the flash units, will render the contribution of the room lights unimportant (for color balance or gross exposure issues).

But, many studio users like to work with the room lights off and only the modeling lights of the studio flash units on. This allows you to judge the shadows cast by the modeling lights which mimics the shadows cast by the flash tubes (hence the name "modeling" lights).

Enjoy! Lon

[Curtis N]

You don't mention how high the ceiling is. Generally you want to avoid anything that hangs down and would possibly interfere with umbrellas and such. Crystal chandeliers are nice for the dining room but not for the studio.

Other than that, most anything will work as long as it's out of the way. Wire an extra switch close to the camera position for the reasons Lon mentioned.

[FlashZebra]

You don't mention how high the ceiling is. Generally you want to avoid anything that hangs down and would possibly interfere with umbrellas and such. Crystal chandeliers are nice for the dining room but not for the studio.
I second this, the ceiling height is typically the most constraining dimension for casual studios.

So, unless you are in a room with grand ceiling height acomidation, do not do anything to diminish your ceiling height.

Enjoy! Lon

[TomPierce]

Can anyone tell me the best ceiling lights to use and where to place them that wont affect my studio lighting?

Like others have said, I believed that ambient studio light had no effect when shooting with studio strobes...

...until one day I was testing a bounce flash setup. Just as a comparison I shot one shot with the studio lights off, and was surprised how much of a difference it made in the shadows.

With the room lights on the shadows were dark, but with the room lights off the shadows were *black*. It was a noticeable difference in the quality of the shadow, so from then on I shoot only with the room lights off.

Tom

[John Mac]

Thanks guys, Ceiling is 8ft high, so I guess lights built into the ceiling would be the best job. Thanks for taking the time..

www.jmac.ie (http://www.jmac.ie)

[FlashZebra]

Thanks guys, Ceiling is 8ft high, so I guess lights built into the ceiling would be the best job. Thanks for taking the time..

www.jmac.ie (http://www.jmac.ie)
Yes, an 8 foot ceiling is very marginal for studio use.

So, do not do anything that subtracts from that already marginal 8 feet. Mount the lights and any other needed ceiling feature flush, or near flush.

Enjoy! Lon

[Curtis N]

I was testing a bounce flash setup. Just as a comparison I shot one shot with the studio lights off, and was surprised how much of a difference it made in the shadows.

With the room lights on the shadows were dark, but with the room lights off the shadows were *black*. It was a noticeable difference in the quality of the shadow, so from then on I shoot only with the room lights off.I would be curious to know what shutter speed you were using when you witnessed this phenomenon.

[TomPierce]

I hope the attachments work - but if it didn't the info is : f 5.6, 1/125, ISO 100

The room lights consist of 4 twin tube florescent fixtures in a space the size of a two car garage. The flash was a 550EX on auto aimed directly at the subject.

If you copy the photos down to your machine a use a viewer that allows you to switch back and forth, the difference (while slight) is noticable, both in the shadow and the black of the chair.

Tom

[TomPierce]

And if you'd like another number to contemplate, the Minolta IV F meter says EV = 7

EV
-6 Night, no city lights under starlight
-5 Night, no city lights under crescent moon
-4 Night, no city lights under half moon
-3 Night, no city lights under full moon
-2 Night, no city lights snowscape under full moon
-1 Very dim ambient artificial light
0 Dim ambient artificial light
1 Distant lighted skyline
2 Total eclipse of moon
3 Candlelight
4 Candle lit close-ups. Dark house interior at night.
5 Night home interiors average light. Auditoriums. Campfires. Street at night.
6 Brightly lit home interiors. Amusement parks. Brightly lit street at night.

7 Bottom of rainforest canopy. Regular store interior.

8 Store windows. Campfires. bonfires. burning buildings. Sports at night.
9 15 minutes after sunset. Neon lights at night.
10 Sunset. Very dark shade. Failing light.
11 Dark shade or rainclouds. Heavy overcast.
12 Open shade, in shadow on a bright day. Cloudy.
13 Cloudy-bright light (no shadows) Overcast but bright. Midday cloud or overcast.
14 Weak, hazy sun, soft shadows. Bright open shade.
15 Full daylight. Bright or hazy sun. Black shadows.
16 Bright daylight on sand or snow.

[FlashZebra]

I hope the attachments work - but if it didn't the info is : f 5.6, 1/125, ISO 100

The room lights consist of 4 twin tube florescent fixtures in a space the size of a two car garage. The flash was a 550EX on auto aimed directly at the subject.

If you copy the photos down to your machine a use a viewer that allows you to switch back and forth, the difference (while slight) is noticable, both in the shadow and the black of the chair.

Tom
Do you have your camera set to automatic white balance for your images above?

If so, the color shift you are seeing may be the camera monkeying with the color balance of the recorded images, not an actual meaningful difference in the quality of light available for exposure or color balance of the scene.

If you had you camera set to automatic white balance for your above comparison, try setting the white balance to a set fixed value (such as daylight, or flash) and make the same comparison.

In your other post above, you indicate EV=7, but I am not quite sure what this value is for, my best guess is that the indicated EV7 value is for the ambient prevalent for your image with the room lights on (but this is just a reasonable guess). I think your basic flash exposure of f 5.6, 1/125, ISO 100 is EV 12 (see link below for citation for this value).

If I have guessed correctly regarding the EV7, this means that your ambient is 5 stops under your exposure. If you increased your shutter speed to the maximum sync for your Canon DSLR, 1/200 or 1/250 (this would not affect the flash exposure), this would bump the flash exposure to ambient ratio to about 6 stops. Note that 6 stops is approaching the inherent dynamic range of you cameras sensor (about 8 stops or so with most Canon sensors). At 6 stops down the ambient would be contributing only 1/64, or about 1.5%, of the exposure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_value

Enjoy! Lon

[TomPierce]

Do you have your camera set to automatic white balance for your images above? If so, the color shift you are seeing may be the camera monkeying with the color balance of the recorded images, not an actual meaningful difference in the quality of light available for exposure or color balance of the scene.

The camera was set to Flash balance.

my best guess is that the indicated EV7 value is for the ambient prevalent for your image with the room lights on. I think your basic flash exposure of f 5.6, 1/125, ISO 100 is EV 12.

...this means that your ambient is 5 stops under your exposure... At 6 stops down the ambient would be contributing only 1/64, or about 1.5%...


Lon,

Thank you for the work you obviously put into this.

I understand what you wrote and where you are going with this.

(Yes, the EV 7 was the measurement of the ambient light - actually it was slightly over at 7.3 or so)

That all agrees with what think I am seeing. With ambient 5 stops down from the level of the flash, that would be approx 3% to 4% of the exposure.

I believe that a 3% difference (especially in the shadows) would be noticable.
(Could you tell the difference between a 7% grey card and a 10% grey card? I'm betting you could...)

The photos were only cropped and resized. And the photo with the ambient lights on has a faint green cast (to my eye at least) which tends to support the ambient florescent theory.

I learn something every day. From now on, I'll turn off the ambient lighting in the studio in hopes of getting deeper blacks.

And if it turns out I'm hallucinating the whole thing (well, it wouldn't be the first time). :)

Tom