I assume there is an instruction to this already but I can’t find it……
I take it there are some typical settings to be used when taking beamshots to try to align all the pictures taken by various users.
Got a few lights now and being a newbie, beamshots always help when trying to understand how different lights perform.
So I thought I’d take some shots of my lights just for the fun of it. It might even interest some forum members I guess……
Hard to regulate that. Every camera is different. Some don't have all the manual settings. P&S is a lot different from DSLR, etc.
ISO 100 or 200
Aperture - keep it wide open, whatever that might be for each camera, like F:1.4 of F:2.7
Daylight WB seems to work best
Shutter of 1 second also seems to work well, but that is more variable. If you really want to see how a hot spot looks, then you have to cut the shutter speed back to 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 or more, to see the center hot spot more clearly.
Too many variables and too many thoughts on it to ever be standardized.
This is what I like on my camera for taking beamshots outdoors at nite.
I use manual exposure with a shutter from 1 sec on closer shots to maybe up to 1.4 seconds on farther shots of 100yds or more. But typically 1.2 sec seems to be very close to what you see in person on farther shots. I typically stay with a f/4 and ISO 400. White balance I set to fine or the image of the sun. But a lot will depend on how bright or weak of light your trying to take photos of. Just experiment to what you see in person and try to match your image to that is my advice. But keep it real and don’t overexpose your images.
You need to have a camera that you can use manual settings on everything like they say in previous replies, to get consistent results (if that is what you want).
You should never change them during the test whatever distance you’re shooting at.
If you’re shooting raw images instead of jpg (if your camera can do that), you don’t have to set the white balance when shooting, but it’s probably easier to try getting it right and close to reality while you’re shooting. If setting the white balance in your image editing program, you have to use the same setting in all images. That goes for every other setting you use in post processing as well.
Use a tripod, since the shutter time is going to be long. Remote control or delayed shutter is good to use.