What settings

[sbp]

I generally have problem taking pictures at dance time.
This one was taken on M -F5.6 - 1/16.
I think if I have bump up shutter speed to 1/20 then I could have avoide the motion. But my question is is there a easy way to find out that this is going to happen because you are in party and has no time.

[sbp]

oh forgot attachment

[AjP]

faster people moving, faster shutter speed you need to freeze the action

[Sonny]

minmum shutter speed to stop action is 1/250.

[engstrom]

This looks like it was taken with a flash, yes? If that's the case then you could drop the shutter speed to 1/60 - 1/100. You shot this at 38mm focal length so 38 * 1.6 (camera crop factor) = 60.8 so 1/60 is the minimum you'd want to shoot to avoid camera shake from handholding. Add in the motion of the child in the shot and you'd like a faster shutter speed. The downside is that will dramtically reduce the ambient exposure so things in the background not illuminated by the flash will be much darker.

[sbp]

Yes this was taken with flash. I don't care about background so next time when I will see subject moving fast I will increment my shutter speed.

Just want to confirm.
So if I have 50mm x 1.6 = 80 i.e I need 1/80 or higher right ?

If that is correct I will try to remember next time to change shutter speed.

[engstrom]

Originally Posted by sbp

Yes this was taken with flash. I don't care about background so next time when I will see subject moving fast I will increment my shutter speed.

Just want to confirm.
So if I have 50mm x 1.6 = 80 i.e I need 1/80 or higher right ?

If that is correct I will try to remember next time to change shutter speed.

1/80 is just a rule of thumb to eliminate blurring of the picture due to camera shake. If the subject is moving then you might want to try a faster shutter speed - 1/125 - 1/250 of a second.

[JohnRushing]

Someone tell me if I'm wrong here, always willing to be corrected. To stop the motion increase your shutter speed, 125 to 250 always seemed to work good for me. If it 's very fast like say a humming birds wings bump the speed way on up. If the lighting becomes a problem open your aperature to compensate for the faster shutter speed although your depth of feild will decrease and backgroud will start bluring out. You can also change your ISO setting to help out with the faster shutter speed. If any or all of this is wrong please someone let me know so I don't go through life with the wrong idea.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

No john you are right except when going with VERY fast objects like that humming bird. Then you freeze the action by strobe/flash.
http://www.oregonwild.com/High-Speed1.V.html
We are talking sub 1/10,000 of a second shots!

[chloew]

Originally Posted by JohnRushing

Someone tell me if I'm wrong here, always willing to be corrected. To stop the motion increase your shutter speed, 125 to 250 always seemed to work good for me. If it 's very fast like say a humming birds wings bump the speed way on up. If the lighting becomes a problem open your aperature to compensate for the faster shutter speed although your depth of feild will decrease and backgroud will start bluring out. You can also change your ISO setting to help out with the faster shutter speed. If any or all of this is wrong please someone let me know so I don't go through life with the wrong idea.

Correct, however when you add a flash things get a bit more complicated.

In flash photography your film/sensor is exposed due to two different light sources, the light from the flash and the ambient light, and balancing the two will determine if you get the desired results. In

The ambient light will following all the rules you listed. However, the light from the flash is not affected by the shutter speed, only by the aperture (and ISO) setting. (The flash is faster than your shutter speed, on the order of 1/500th to 1/2000th of a second.) In addition for a given flash output power, the distance between the flash and subject will greatly affect the exposure, but distance has not affect on ambient light. The flash tends to only light up your main subject and not the background.

Due to camera mechanics (curtain shutter) you need to stay below your camera's sync speed which is normally around 1/250s for current DSLR/SLRs. So as you change aperature and shutter speed while using a flash you affect both ambient and flash light and the balance between the two.

Because the timing of the flash is very fast you can often use it to freeze the action, but you need to make sure that the ambient light received by the film/sensor does not blur out your main subject which is what happened in the photo posted above. You can avoid this by increasing the shutter speed. However, this will also cause the background scene to be exposed less and be darker as the background depends more on the ambient light than the flash to be exposed in your image.

Finding the right balance of flash and ambient light, exposure of the main subject and background, freezing or blurring the main subject is an art form and something frequently encountered in concert photography. Often it can be very creative to use a flash with a long exposure to create a frozen image with some added blur of the main subject while also providing more light to the background.

Here are a few examples:

No Flash
(Long shutter and resulting blur)

8s, f2.8, ISO 100


Flash and Ambient Light Fairly Balanced
(Long shutter with flash gives frozen image plus motion blur of the hands, more exposure of the background)

1/4s, f2.8, ISO 400

1/8s, f3.5, ISO 400


Mostly Flash
(Short exposure and flash give frozen image and darker background, less ambient light)

1/45s, f2.8, ISO 400

[JohnRushing]

Cool! I'm gonna have to try both of those. I'm going to dig into some info on high speed photography tonight if I can stay awake. I actually feel asleep reading the last post, no offence to the author because your post was very interresting but I'm just dog tired today. Still on my cruise time of going to bed at 3am and getting up at 10:30am! 4:30 came way to early this morning!

[sbp]

Chloew, Thanks for good post. I got it now. next time I will see if I can produce freez image. mostly at dance party it is dark everyone is moving and so my intend is to get only one or two people in picture.

I will try different shutter speed. Real test will be on 22nd where I will be shooting dance in reception party.

[Russell]

I may be in the minority here but I rarely want to freeze motion. I like to shoot with the ambient shutter speed and pop some color with a flash. I actually would prefer the above posted image to one that's frozen as it accentuates movement.

Attached are examples of what I'm talking about.

-Russell

[Tims]

Russel, those sandhills are weirding me out!
Strangness. Great shots.

chloew, you rock.
Excellent post much appreciated.
That explains a few not so pleasant results I've had.
Ohhhh....................

[Russell]

Sorry about the weirding out part but I am glad you like the shots!

Here's another, not so weird, example.