always learning..

[danchez]

OK, I have to admit, the more I learn, the more I have to learn. I recently upgraded to a D700 from a D70 and WOW, talk about some learning. Anyway, I was talking to Jordan Chan about one of his Senior Pics, Courtney. I was curious about his shutter speed and using flashes. Well, I will let you read the rest.

Originally Posted by Redmouse

Right, in Nikon it's called Auto FP. You have to enable that in your camera instead of the flash. Check your flash sync speed menu. The newer units have 1/320 (Auto FP) on it. But it doesn't really matter as long as you have that enabled.

I don't mind answering these on the forum you know :)

yeah, I just looked it up. True about the forum, would be good for others to learn also. I will go ahead and copy and post this in the forum under lighting discussion. Thanks again Jordan.

[texxter]

This is a very handy feature of modern flashes. The advantage is that you can freeze motion and blur the background - the downside is that power is greatly decreased when the flash is used in this manner. You can compensate for this by having multiple flashes at the same location. Joe McNally has used this technique in an extreme manner shooting action and fashion in the desert, and he explains it here. I wonder how much Nikon pays him for these fancy demos of the technology!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7qEgl2uQHg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90mlK8ktV68

[DoublyDan]

Those vids are awesome!
I have just bought his Hot Shoe Diaries book but have yet to read it cause of Work and School...and the need of off camera flashes (I have one but have not bought the radio poppers yet). I will be experimenting with my camera and hopefully multiple lights as soon as I get my second flash and poppers as well.

[ronocnikral]

some may need to excuse my extremely nerdy response (basic calculus knowledge needed).

If you are familiar with calculus, then best way to think of exposure is the "area under the curve" or the integral of the "light intensity" vs time. flashes yield a parabolic type curve over a short period of time. So...if you can increase the "light intensity" you can have a shorter exposure time (areas being the same). then think of the ambient light as a constant source, the goal would then be to have the area under the ambient curve the same as the area under the flash curve. more or less, depending on what you are going for.

love him or hate him...ken rockwell does a pretty good job explaining things here.

[danchez]

Originally Posted by texxter

This is a very handy feature of modern flashes. The advantage is that you can freeze motion and blur the background - the downside is that power is greatly decreased when the flash is used in this manner. You can compensate for this by having multiple flashes at the same location. Joe McNally has used this technique in an extreme manner shooting action and fashion in the desert, and he explains it here. I wonder how much Nikon pays him for these fancy demos of the technology!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7qEgl2uQHg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90mlK8ktV68

look at all those strobes!!!

[bondarnes]

Although they may be hard to find, you can achieve the same results using FP (focal plane) flashbulbs. But alas, only one shot per bulb so it could get expensive really quickly.