Using old school studio flashes with D700, blown out exposures :(

[Eric Rose]

If I meter my studio flash setup as I have done for years for film, set my D700 to manual and set the f stop as I normally would based on the meter, my photos are blown out. WTF? I am using an electronic trigger.

[polyglot]

Is the ISO set to same as the film? Not getting too much ambient from a long shutter?

Perhaps you're used to using the over-exposure latitude of your (assuming neg here) film whereas the DSLR will have under-exposure latitude.

[Eric Rose]

Naturally I would have checked to insure the iso's were the same . Also I have used this same setup exposing 1000's transparencies over many years. So I think I'm missing something with this digi stuff. Oh ya just to state the obvious, yes all the camera settings have been checked and everything is as it should be.

[Frank Petronio]

That's funny because a lot of people use digicams as half-way decent meters. Something must be amiss. Try a different strobe, different digital camera, start to narrow down the problem that way....

It's not something silly like leaving the camera on Aperture or Program modes is it?

[Eric Rose]

Thanks Frank. As I said in my OP I have set the camera to Manual. Beats the heck out of me. I will grab my buddies 1DsM whatever and see what happens with it. Really pisses me off!

[Tom J McDonald]

Were you using the same trigger with the other camera?

[J. Fada]

Take a look and see if your aperture is closing down. You might have a malfunction of the fixable kind.

[Michael Graves]

I use a pair of Speedotron 103 heads in a Black Line 800WS power pack for my digital work. Two things I found out very quicklyis that the Canon EOS350 I use and my Gossen Multipro are two full stops apart in agreeing what the proper exposure should be. The beauty of digital is that you try, swear, and then try again until you get it right. On the plus side, since everything is totally manual, I discovered I could lose the 18-55mm El Krappo that came with the camera and mount my Olympus 50mm 3.5 Macro for shots that could stand the longer focal length and the 24mm 2.8 Zuiko for "normal" shots. Both beat the crap out of the Canon zoom lens. I just have to remember to stop down for each shot.

[jp]

I'd guess auto-iso is enabled on the Nikon; a great feature for some existing light uses.

Make sure your head is up to the viewfinder porthole too; light can enter there on some cameras and mess up the meter. Some of the cameras have a lever to close a shade on it.

Except for bellows factor on 4x5/8x10, my d300 does a pretty close job with exposure.

[Frank Petronio]

I don't know why everyone is so quick to accuse Eric of overlooking something? The digital camera could be at fault ;-p