On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:38:56 -0700, stvlai wrote:

I just got a 2 sets of Strobe lights and the Boom Stand. Got a couple
question I hope someone can help answer

Q1) White Balance
I set the WB to the Gray Card shots that I took manually but the photos
comes out bluish. Normally I use Model lights and set the WB per the
Gray Card and it turns out fine. With strobes lights I am having this
bluish color problem.

It sounds like when you're doing the gray card WB the camera is trying to
white balance ALL the lights, not just the flash. So, forget the gray
card. Just use the camera's "Flash" or "Daylight" WB preset. That
should be good enough. And take your camera off "Auto". Set f-stop and
shutter speed manually.

Also, how are you triggering the flashes?

What camera are you using?

What flashes?


Q2) Ceiling Lights turn off?
When I use Strobes lights, do I turn off all the surrounding lights (e.g
ceiling lights etc) and therefore leaving no lights except when the
Strobe lights flashes? Is this way to do it?

You can. Or if they are part of the composition, you can leave them on.
It's entirely up to you and what type of effect you're looking for.

Flash exposure is controlled with f-stops. With flash, since it's
"instantaneous," shutter speeds have little affect on its exposure, but a
lot on continuous light sources. So, if you set your shutter speed
manually, you can control the amount of ambient light in your shots from
a lot to none at all. But don't set the shutter speed higher than the
flash sync speed. You can set it slower, just not faster.

--
Fotoguy
Contributing Expert
BestInClass.com
"Personalized digital camera recommendations"
http://www.bestinclass.com/digital-cameras