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EOS R6 How to get photos with strobe lights going off

wrk4no1
Enthusiast

So once again i have a question. Last night I was photographing a haunted hayride. They pull this hayride wagon into a barn where its pitch black. Once they get the show on the road, they use these strobes to light up the inside of the barn. I know its like a camera flash but continuous. My question is how do I get images when this is going off? Out of 10 shots in a row I might get 1-2 the rest are black or like a camera flash with the shutter speed too quick half an image. I'll show some images when i download them today. 

Canon R6 mkii, 24-70 f2.8. Other camera setting I'll add when i download images.

2 REPLIES 2

NatalyaP
Product Expert
Product Expert

Greetings wrk4no1,

Shooting in an environment where there are fast shooting strobes that are out of your control will be extremely difficult to the point where there are no actual recommendations on what type of settings to set on any camera. For the split second that the flash is not firing, the environment may be extremely dark. The camera will need to have it's shutter speed slowed down, open the lens aperture as wide as it can go, or increase the ISO to a high value to get a proper exposure. But within a split second, the strobe will fire off and will throw everything towards the other end of the spectrum where we would go in the opposite direction with our settings. The camera's reaction and the human reaction would be too slow to keep up with the flashing strobe. The best you can do is shoot continuously with the camera and hope that you get a couple of good shots here and there.

wq9nsc
Elite
Elite

Your best bet under this type of lighting is to treat it somewhat like lightning.  Set camera to fairly low ISO (experiment based upon the scene), use an aperture setting sufficient to capture the depth of field needed, set the shutter to bulb which allows you to manually hold the shutter open.  Depending upon the level of motion inside, hold the shutter open for 1 or more strobe flashes (if there is movement in the scene, go with a single strobe flash).  Check the exposure results and adjust ISO accordingly.

If the strobe duration is short, camera shake won't be an issue because it will be just like using a camera flash except less convenient 🙂

Rodger

EOS 1DX M3, 1DX M2, 1DX, 5DS R, M6 Mark II, 1D M2, EOS 650 (film), many lenses, XF400 video
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