PDA

View Full Version : mixing studio strobes and 175W 10K MH's

jthnhale
03/07/2005, 07:17 PM
hey all,
I'd like to shoot some coral in my tank tonight.
My MH bulbs are very yellow, I wanted to mix my studio strobes with them.
The strobes should also stop any movement of the coral as well.
My question is how would I meter for the strobes.
I was planning on pointing the strobes into the water above the tank
and using a snoot, or barndoors to direct the light. I thought a soft box might not
get the hard light effect I'm looking for. I also want the background to go black.
So would I take a general reading from outside the tank, or should I use a spot meter pointed into the tank? I'm shooting this with film by the way, so I can't see how it will turn out till the film is processed and scanned.
thanks,
Jonathan
gho
03/07/2005, 09:29 PM
Sounds good. You should just turn the halides off if you're going to use a strobe. The strobes will waaaay overpower you halides anyways, so its no biggie if you don't
jthnhale
03/07/2005, 09:50 PM
I ended up shooting with the MH's on, I thought if I turned them off some of the coral might close up. The strobe read at f16 / 60, the halides gave me f16 at 1 sec. mixed I got f22 at a second. I bracketed around this and shot 160 color neg. i have no idea what it's going to look like, some of the shots i tilted the light and back lit the coral.
I found out one cool thing, when I shut off the pumps some of the soft coral grew huge, they really like much less flow than I'm subjecting them to. I think I either have to set up their own little tank or give them away.
gho
03/07/2005, 10:09 PM
Yup! Good thing you turned off your pumps.

LPS and softies don't typically like too much flow. Try sticking them under the powerhead rather than in the current flow.
jthnhale
03/07/2005, 10:14 PM
Thanks, I have them in the least amount of flow now. The problem is that I set up a closed loop that's moving the water almost everywhere in the tank. The tank is really set up for SPS, I ended up with some softies because people gave me some. They are always open and happy. If I keep them I'm going to build them some shelter from the currents.