Balancing strobes with day light by Jay P. Morgan ( TheSlantedLens )

In this Slanted Lens Lesson we are going to show you how to balance strobes with daylight. When I shoot on location I usually use the ambient light {Sun or Shade) as one of my light sources in the scene and then bring in strobes to make that light more interesting.

Using strobes and daylight together is most successful when I control the ambient with the shutter speed and the strobes with the aperture. I use a low ISO and then pick an aperture based on how much I want in focus and how much power I can get from the strobes.

If my strobes can give me f8 then I know that I need to adjust my shutter speed up and down to balance the sun light with the strobes at F8. The strobe is constant so the aperture is constant but the sun is changing so my shutter speed will be changing.

This is a successful process that allows for the constant changing of the sun. If I want the sun as the rim light then I will lengthen the shutter speed to allow the sun to be one stop brighter than my strobes. With practice this process will make more sense and become very intuitive.

This was a great shoot that we did out at Universal Studios Back lot that illustrates this principle.

by TheSlantedLens ( Jay P. Morgan )