Okay, I did this session this morning, using a NikonD200, and a Nikon 50mm 1.8 lens. Do you see the dark shadowing on the side of the image? I don't know why that happenned, It wasn't on all of the images, only the last half. Does anyone know what's wrong with it?? I don't!

Kate,

I don't know why that would happen, espically since you said it wasn't on all the images. Did you do any changes during the sesion, settings-camera, did you move?

I don't shoot Nikon so can't help you much there.

If anything this will bump your post for ya !!

Thanks,

I know that I moved locations in the studio, and changed from manual to aperature priority, but there were a few that I took before these in the same spot/same settings that were fine. WEIRD!

Lens Hood?

try different lenses, see if it still happens, if it does, it's probably a shutter issue

I had the lens hood on the entire shoot, do you think that could be it???

If you changed to aperture priority and are using strobes for fill (or background lights) you might have gone above the sync speed for them. In a studio, manual is best - but any time you are using strobes, shutter priority is preferable to aperture priority for that reason.

And remember that studio strobes usually sync at slower shutter speeds than regular flash does.

The lens hood could DEFINITELY be it - that's happened to me before. See if that works!

I would look into the lens from the front. I had a Tamron 28-75 which had a ring that usually concels the screws on the inside of the lense come loose. So the ring would get in the way and cause shadows like you are seeing. Took me a while to try to find the culprit until I look into the lens itself and caught the loose ring. Try shaking the lens a little to see if you can get it to come loose. Because sometimes it would pop back into the correct position and I am able to get a good picture. Ultimately had to send it into Tamron to have them open the lens up and secure that loose ring.

-David

If you're using flash, the problem is that you're above the synch speed. The first image was at 1/640 and the second at 1/1000. The D200 syncs at 1/250, so you're seeing the digital equivalent of the shutter curtain.

When I'm shooting with strobes, I set the exposure to manual. I first choose the DoF I want and set the aperture accordingly, then adjust the shutter to the amount of ambient I want (if minimal, set it to the sync speed). I start with the ISO at the lowest and turn it up if I need more ambient light. If I need less light I use either an ND filter (polarizer also works fine).

If you're using the standard hood for that lens, you're not going to get that amount of vignetting, not matter what, even if you stacked a dozen filters on that lens (then you'd get a more even vignette). So if you're not using a flash, there might be a problem with your camera.

Thanks for the wealth of information everyone! I wasn't using flash, only available light. I will have to play around with it this week, and see what I come up with. Thanks

I had something like that happen to me once. It was the lens hood. It was still on, but not in a locked position. To test it look through the camera with it locked. Then unlock it and rotate it while you are looking through. if the funky corner shadows come in then that's the problem.

Took me 10 min to figure that one out while I was shooting a wedding. Its difficult to spot as the lens hood doesn't actually come off, so you don't think of it right away.

Chris