[Todd Terry]

I don’t really know the capabilities of the T7i so this might not be useful info… but if the camera will allow you to dial in the exact color temperature you want, I think you’ll get much more likable results than if you use a white balance feature, or any presets. I actually haven’t hit the “white balance” button on a camera in probably 20 years, literally… I always dial in the exact degrees I want.

So, let’s say you are shooting outdoors in daylight, which “normally” would be 5600° but that looks a bit too cool to you, then you can crank it up to 5800° or 6000° to warm it up.

BUT… your camera might now allow that, you might have only white balance and preset functions. If that’s the case, you can use an old-school technique to trick your white balance into giving you the warmer tones you are looking for. To do that, don’t white balance on white or gray, balance on a pale blue surface. That will skew the white balance into looking a bit warmer. There used to be sold “warming cards,” sets of white balancing cards that were various shades of light blue to help with that. I don’t know if those are still sold, but it’s worth a Google.

If your images are too dark, that’s not a function of the white balance, that’s a function of exposure. Sounds like your images are just underexposed. Use a higher ISO or a lower f-stop number… or adjust the exposure bracketing if you are using auto exposure (which I won’t lecture you about, but you shouldn’t be doing that either).

Hope this helps….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[chris pike] ” would you consider these lights pretty much cheap junk?”

Nah, not really. I’d say they are cheap, but I’d hesitate to call them junk.

Are they going to be the same as high-end panels, such as Astras or whatever? No, of course not. But they sound like they have definitely been serviceable instruments for you, and did what you needed them to do without breaking the bank. Sometimes that’s all you need. I’ve certainly shot with lower-end instruments, before.

If you are upgrading, I wouldn’t just chunk them. If you don’t need them and can sell them for half what you paid for them, do it. Or, hang on to them and just keep them in your arsenal of backup instruments, wall washers, or any time you need some kind of little fixture.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well Bryan, not a real mystery there…

This is a really common problem anytime you’re shooting around flash photography, and unfortunately it’s just the nature of the beast. There’s nothing wrong with your camera, and you’re not doing anything wrong yourself either.
What you are seeing is the “rolling shutter” effect, because your camera does not expose the entire frame at once, but rather from top to bottom, it’s catching the part of the flash while the frame is being exposed in the upper half.

Your camera is a rolling-shutter camera and there’s no changing that, obviously. The best solution would be to switch to a “global shutter” camera… which exposes the entire frame at once, rather than top to bottom. You’d still get the flashes, but they would cover the entire frame, which does look a bit more natural. Unfortunately global-shutter cameras are much rarer, and tend to be higher-end (i.e., more expensive) cameras.

The only other solution I could think of would be to try shooting at a much higher shutter speed. That wouldn’t eliminate the problem, but it might reduce it. When you see the flashes they will still only cover a part of the frame like that, but you might see fewer of them since the higher shutter speed would reduce the odds of the flashes happening during the time the shutter is open. The downsides to that though are pretty obvious… you might be shooting in darker situations that wouldn’t allow for higher shutter speeds… AND everything would get that staccato “narrow shutter” look that might make your wedding reception look more like an action movie (and probably not a desired effect at all).

I think the only real solution is to use a different camera.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I think the inverse square law only applies to undirected (unfocused) point light sources (i.e., a bare bulb, candle flame, etc.). Once you start putting any kind of “concentrators” in the path (i.e. lenses) those exact physics no longer apply.

But that’s all over my head…..

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Juan David Romero] “You think I can at least get away with the 10-second CNN news clip?”

For the sources you mentioned (CNN, BBC, a Middle Eastern network), among those CNN is probably likely to be the most litigious of the bunch… not the least. They have a division that regularly licenses and makes available their news footage for people exactly like yourself, and aren’t likely to say “Eh, it’s ok” if you choose to grab their footage and use it for free. They are, by the way, one of the more expensive stock sources as well, and since CNN buys a ton of freelance footage you may very likely find the same exact thing available elsewhere… where it would probably be cheaper.

As was noted in another answer, claiming “Fair Use” is only a defense if someone makes a claim against you. It does nothing to prevent them from making that claim, filing a suit, or attempting to take any other legal action. And if that were to happen, and even if you were to prevail and it is determined that the footage is available to you under Fair Use (which is probably unlikely), you would have already spent hundreds of times as much in legal costs than if you had just properly licensed the footage in the first place.

So…. just bite the bullet and buy the footage.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I think we’ve decided it was just the heat strips in the HVAC systems, probably dusty and firing up for the first time this season. It’s been very unseasonably warm here in the south, we’re well into December and I’m still wearing my summer sandals today (and only shifted from my Hawaiian shirts last week).

Then again, there’s a chance of snow here this weekend…..crazy…………….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well I just walked through the lobby and noticed a little bit of an “electrical smell”… not quite a burning scent, but in the neighborhood. I suspect that’s coming from the glorious rotating color wheel … that can’t be good.

Will keep an eye on it (and extinguisher handy)…

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Weirdly enough even after a few decades of DP’ing I have never had the need to put a lighting instrument on a mic stand (you’d think that would have come up, but I guess it hasn’t), so I decided to step over into the studio to try it…

I’m not sure what is going on at your place or what exact hardware you have, but I had no trouble popping an instrument with a standard baby-pin receiver yoke (5/8″) on top of a regular ol’ run-of-the-mill mic stand. All I had to do was unscrew and take off the little “lock nut” that was on top of the mic stand (middle picture below). The receiver on the yoke of that particular instrument (I tried it with a LitePanels Astra) was a little “loose,” so I thought maybe it was more forgiving than other hardware would be, so I tried a plain ol’ Matthews grip head since I knew the tolerance would be a lot tighter on that, and it fit just fine….

Maybe you could post some pics of what you’re trying to do and exactly how your particular hardware is?

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Paul Ballain] “I’m curious as to how many of you that own a Canon C-Series (100, 200, 300, 500, 700) would use an Auto ISO feature when shooting if it were available.”

As for me I would say “never,” or maybe “virtually never.” But then again, I’m a very old-school DP and personally never ever shoot auto-anything, and would probably not even know how to hold a camera if my hand wasn’t on a focus handwheel. Probably a good thing I’ve always shot that way, since my C300PL doesn’t really have any auto features at all (that I am aware of).

I can see how some people might use it, though.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Very neat… I’m ready to order… i’m not a GoPro fan (I would be if you could adjust the dang shutter speed), but it should work well with my Zenmuse X5 camera head. Hate having to wait so long for it though.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com