Anyone done studio work with S3 IS?

I am not sure how one would accomplish studio portraits (particularly glamor) with such a camera... not confident I could with some of the limitations of the camera in regards to low light conditions.
Has anyone done such with the S3 IS and have samples to show, or advice to give?

Thanks!

I too am interested in doing (limited) studio work with an S3.
Unfortunately my shiny new S3 is in transit and I won't have my hands on it for 2 weeks.
Low lighting was not a consideration for me in purchasing the camera. I want to use some old (pre digital) studio flash units.

I'm setting myself up with an ND filter on an adapter tube because I've found with a previous digital camera that I need to stop down more than the f8 limit of most non SLRs. I want to be able to open up to reduce the depth of field.

I'm also hoping that in full manual mode the on-camera flash does not give a pre-flash (red-eye reduction off of course). But I'll set myself up with a home made digital slave trigger (to ignore the pre-flash) if necessary.

I've seen fabulous work done with the S3 in other areas but nothing with studio work so look forward to hearing/seeing what some of you have achieved.

No reason why you cant.
Biggest issue is the background.
Put lots of space between the model and the background.

MaxZoom wrote in post #2306904
I too am interested in doing (limited) studio work with an S3.
Unfortunately my shiny new S3 is in transit and I won't have my hands on it for 2 weeks.
Low lighting was not a consideration for me in purchasing the camera. I want to use some old (pre digital) studio flash units.

I'm setting myself up with an ND filter on an adapter tube because I've found with a previous digital camera that I need to stop down more than the f8 limit of most non SLRs. I want to be able to open up to reduce the depth of field.

I'm also hoping that in full manual mode the on-camera flash does not give a pre-flash (red-eye reduction off of course). But I'll set myself up with a home made digital slave trigger (to ignore the pre-flash) if necessary.

I've seen fabulous work done with the S3 in other areas but nothing with studio work so look forward to hearing/seeing what some of you have achieved.

Red-eye reduction on the S3 does not affect slave triggers so you can leave red-eye reduction on. In Manual mode the S3 does not pre flash. You can also use the Menu and change "Flash Adjust" to Manual in AV & Tv Modes to elliminate the pre-flash.

MaxZoom wrote in post #2306904
I'm setting myself up with an ND filter on an adapter tube because I've found with a previous digital camera that I need to stop down more than the f8 limit of most non SLRs. I want to be able to open up to reduce the depth of field.

You have me curious!
Pardon my ignorance, but would not exposure compensation adjustments be the same as a ND Filter?

The biggest issue with using an S3 in a studio is controlling the lights. Hot lights are too hot for extensive shooting, so strobes are much more popular. If the S3 had either a hot shoe or PC sync port it could easily fire strobes. Without these it's limited to using the strobes as slaves to the manually controlled onboard flash unit, which isn't always ideal or feasible.

Another end of it is image quality. ISO50/100 is no problem so noise isn't an issue, and narrow apertures are usually used in studios on dSLRs anyway (background separation isn't always the main goal). BUT even though the S3 is a good camera, you don't really know image quality until you get a sharp prime on a dSLR and can examine one of those under 100% magnification. It's a beautiful thing.

DanteCaspian wrote in post #2307597
You have me curious!
Pardon my ignorance, but would not exposure compensation adjustments be the same as a ND Filter?

With the exception of fill-in flash, which you would normally avoid for studio work because you will get mixed colour (color) temperatures, you have no control of exposure using shutter speed with flash.
That allows adjustment of ISO or aperture.
My flash strobes are >15 years old and work at a single (high) output energy. I used to use them for photographing kids in school with a 35mm SLR. At 100 ASA I could move the flash units far enough away to shoot at f5.6 to f8. In my house the flash units are much closer so I need f11-f16. Using a ND4 and 80ASA I'll be back in range of the aperture of the S3 f/2.7 (W) - f/3.5 (T) to f8.
Hope this explains.

spur wrote in post #2307420
Red-eye reduction on the S3 does not affect slave triggers so you can leave red-eye reduction on. In Manual mode the S3 does not pre flash. You can also use the Menu and change "Flash Adjust" to Manual in AV & Tv Modes to elliminate the pre-flash.

Excellent information, many thanks.

cdi-ink.com wrote in post #2307627
If the S3 had either a hot shoe or PC sync port it could easily fire strobes.

It does not.

Thanks for the information everyone!

I am still interested in any samples that you S3 iS users may have done. Anyone have some portraits to share?

It's been years since I have done any studio portrait work with any kind of camera, and I don't plan to ever do it again. So while I have no portrait samples for you from my S2, I see no reason why one couldn't make very good studio portraits with the S3. I don't believe it would be the best choice of cameras for this type of work on a full time bases, but none the less, still capable making good portraits. Just my opinion of course.

I just got my hot lights /softboxes last week I'll try to get some samples up soon. So far it looks pretty good, But I am going make the switch to a dslr soon.

mhall711 wrote in post #2861304
I just got my hot lights /softboxes last week I'll try to get some samples up soon. So far it looks pretty good, But I am going make the switch to a dslr soon.

I like my S2 a lot, and believe it to be capable of some studio work. However, if I was going to do very much of it, I too would use an SLR camera.