Setting up Studio Lights (for Elinchrom BX 500ri) - TOO MUCH SHADOW PROBLEM

I am wondering if I am setting up my lights correctly:

1 strobe light - should this normally be off and fire when I take the picture?
1 fill light - should this normally be on all the time - should it also fire when I take a picture?

What is happening is my fill light is on all the time, not firing when I take the picture. The strobe light is firing when I take the shot, but it is oversaturating. I have turned it down all the way to 2.3.

Overall, my problem is too much light coming from my strobe and not enough from my fill light. I have tried moving the lights around and also turning the strobe down all the way and the fill light up all the way. Maybe I am having an equipment problem.

Total newbie to studio photography, btw, so I just don't have a clue.

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hi Jewel, first problem i see is you are shoooting at ISO 200 drop that to ISO 100 that gets you 1 stop darker

next bump up your shutter speed to around 1/125 that will get rid of your ambient light

also you are shooting at F/4 , if you move to say F5.6 you will also be a stop darker

as to your strobe situation , if you can't dial them down further, move them further away or use a modifier such as a softbox

I would suggest you turn to the pages in the operating manual that discusses modelling lights and optical slave triggering.

dedsen wrote in post #12794850
I would suggest you turn to the pages in the operating manual that discusses modelling lights and optical slave triggering.

+1

As it very much sounds to me as though you are confusing modelling lights with the flash functions and general set-up.

Ted

I would suggest that you read a book, at least understand the difference between the modelling light and the strobe, look up the inverse square law and buy a flash meter.

Hi Jewel, fist welcome to the wonderful world of studio strobes. So as has been mentioned there seems to be some confusion between the use of the modeling light and the actual flash. The intention of the modeling light is to allow you to see how the light is going to fall on your subjects, and allow you to position the lights for the desired affect. The modeling light is not meant to be a source of light for your actual shot, that is what the strobe is for. On the BXri you have 3 choices with the modeling light (off, manual, and proportional) lets skip off as that is self explanatory. Manual is just that you set the power of the modeling light to what ever power you want, this has no affect on the power of the strobe. Proportional means the modeling light will adjust it's brightness as you adjust the strobes output. This mode is useful in seeing the output difference between your main light and your fill, again this is just for setup purposes and is not for your actual exposure. When it comes to exposure the best advise would be to get a light meter that way you can know the proper exposure for the amount of light your strobes are putting off. If you don't have one I would start with FJ's advice and set the ISO to 100 the shutter speed to 125 and it has been my experience with my BX500ri's that without any filter on the lens I rarely shoot below F8. Also being as you said you have 2 lights I am guessing you got the kit and have the skyport wireless transmitter make sure the switch that has OFF/Group/All is set to all so that it is triggering both flashes. There is a lot of great advice on this forum when it come to studio lights but you might also check out youtube. These links are for some videos by Tony Corbell that were done as promos for the profoto D1's but it really applies to any lights.

http://www.youtube.com …st=FLPmd0KEGKbI​8&index=20
http://www.youtube.com …nVY4jUwS8&featu​re=related

I would highly recomend investing in a light meter and check out the latest blog post from POTN member and all around lighting genius Frank Doorhof http://www.frankdoorho​f.com/site/?p=2974#mor​e-2974

Hope this helps