Black Bar at Bottom of Shot

Folks,

Looking for some advice on what I am doing wrong here...

Set up for some portraits I need to shoot next week, and started a test shot or two. But each shot has a black bar at the bottom of the screen. The bar does not appear in naturual light... only with the studio lighting.

My set up is:

2 AB400s each at 45o of the subject chair, head height, 2/3 power.
5DMk2, M Mode
200 ISO
70-200 1.4L IS with hood attached (could this be the cause?)
F/8
250

Untouched sample:

Reduce your shutter speed to 1/200 or maybe 1/160 and see if it disappears.

Shutter speed too high...1/250 violates the max flash synch speed of most FF cameras....the shutter is not fully open at that speed when the exposure is made, and you are seeing one curtain at the black band.

What they said. Without flash, and a blurrier edge, it reminds me of some shutter nightmares I had once, but here it does look like out of sync.

Thanks, guys! Makes perfect sense!

I always thought that 250 was the max. Maybe I am just used to my old crop cameras? (this is my first studio head shot session since moving from a 40D to the 5DMk2)

Mario, bite your tongue!! My initial fear was shutter, until I started experimenting with natural light, and saw the issue was no longer there... but I did panic briefly!

I can safely tell my trusty assistant (who hates having her picture taken) that she really didnt break the camera.

1/250 is typical max for APS-C, 1/200 for FF...the frame size being larger on FF accounts for why the shutter cannot be fully open for as brief a time with FF.

Aldwyn wrote in post #10435646
Thanks, guys! Makes perfect sense!

I always thought that 250 was the max. Maybe I am just used to my old crop cameras? (this is my first studio head shot session since moving from a 40D to the 5DMk2)

Mario, bite your tongue!! My initial fear was shutter, until I started experimenting with natural light, and saw the issue was no longer there... but I did panic briefly!

I can safely tell my trusty assistant (who hates having her picture taken) that she really didnt break the camera.

the 5DMKII has a slower sync with non-canon strobes. results vary, but for myself using alien bees-- the banding disappears at 1/125 (almost unnoticeable at 1/160 though), and after watching Zach Arias' workshop, he also had the same problem.

If the monolight is attached via a sync cable its likely the 1/200 will work.
Radio triggers introduce processing and propagation latency that often means having to reduce the shutter speed a bit more.

When a radio trigger manufacturer quotes a max sync speed they are attempting to promote the low latency they introduce.

Wilt wrote in post #10435651
1/250 is typical max for APS-C, 1/200 for FF...the frame size being larger on FF accounts for why the shutter cannot be fully open for as brief a time with FF.

For Canon, yes, but all the Nikon crop (prosumer) and Full Frame bodies have a max shutter sync speed of 1/250s.

Wilt wrote in post #10435651
1/250 is typical max for APS-C, 1/200 for FF...the frame size being larger on FF accounts for why the shutter cannot be fully open for as brief a time with FF.

not true , sorry

1Ds syncs at 1/250
xxD at 1/250
only the 5D syncs at 1/200
1D classic and Nikon D70 sync at 1/500

Aldwyn wrote in post #10435490
Folks,

Looking for some advice on what I am doing wrong here...

Set up for some portraits I need to shoot next week, and started a test shot or two. But each shot has a black bar at the bottom of the screen. The bar does not appear in naturual light... only with the studio lighting.

My set up is:

2 AB400s each at 45o of the subject chair, head height, 2/3 power.
5DMk2, M Mode
200 ISO
70-200 1.4L IS with hood attached (could this be the cause?)
F/8
250

Untouched sample:

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

the shutter speed exceeds the max sync of the camera.
set a slower shutter speed: the 5D will sync at 1/200 (max)
in a standard studio setup (most of the time) there is no need to sync at more than 1/125 actually

also try 3 lights (left, right,hair) : left at f/8 , right and hair at f/5.6

good luck

1/125 is your safe zone. Just stay there.

Thanks, guys! Dropping to 125 did indeed solve the problem!

That's what I get for switching from crop to FF without looking at the fine details between the two!

A little late, but you exceeded max sync speed...

Aldwyn wrote in post #10436118
Thanks, guys! Dropping to 125 did indeed solve the problem!

That's what I get for switching from crop to FF without looking at the fine details between the two!

FF?
I shoot FF since 2003 with the 1Ds and the max sync speed has always been 1/250

only the 5D gives a slower sync speed.

again talking about sync speed I still envy the 1/800 of the hassy (thanks to their leaf shutter)
and shooting strobes outdoors at 1/250 is problematic. (not impossible with tricks or ND filters or mainly the fact that the black line can e cropped in PP)

at least the first pro digital bodies (1D classic) were able to sync at 1/500 but since the vast majority of the users didn't care about a slow sync then Canon and Nikon didn't care as well.