Well ok, say you’re shooting at 35mm (nice average focal length?) you want to shoot at 1/70, ISO200, f 5.6 say? That’s more than 3 stops under exposed in the room I’m in now.

Usually you don’t want strong flash as it’s poor quality of light, with nice light (direction and any modifiers) the whole scene may be flash lit. E.g. bouncing off the ceiling.

Anyhow, to return to my original point, the flash light still only cares about aperture (and ISO). I was trying to help you understand – it’s not “just adding more light”. If it was adding constant light, then it would affect your exposure as normal, as it is, it’s not.

So to freeze action with the flash and expose the background, you need a flash power + aperture + ISO to expose the rider correctly (to freeze them in the flash duration) and then a shutter speed to expose the background. Where there’s a small difference in exposure levels, the trail will be small, if not it’ll be large. Slow sync (or similar) mode on your camera will attempt to auto meter in this way (flash exposure subject, then burn in the background)

To add further confusion, another reason you might not want to mix ambient and flash is that you then need to gel the flash to match ambient. Otherwise you end up with orange looking ambient/very obvious white (or blue) flash light.

Anyhow, we seem to be slightly OT now 😉 I recommend http://www.strobist.com as an excellent learning resource.

IA – If I understand you, you’re saying the shutter speed doesn’t matter with a flash firing (as the flash fires for 1/10,000 of a second anyway)?
Now, I’m no expert, but in my reading around the subject (recently, actually!), I came across this, which I’m afraid shows the IMPORTANCE of shutter speed with flash, and why a fast speed IS useful at times…

DrP

Hehehe.. DrP.. you are demonstrating why taking photos is such a argued over area.. there’s as many ways to think about and do it as there are photographers…

Dr P – that’s why flash sync speed is important, as it lets you shoot wider apertures for a given ambient exposure, and so as flash only cares about aperture (provided it can sync) your flash doesn’t need to be as powerful to get the same exposure.

Sync speed and shutter speed are related, but important for different reasons!

Simple example of this point, say I’m shooting a scene which is nicely exposed, with ambient and flash balanced as I wish, and I’m at f5.6, 1/200 but the flash is on full power (balancing strong sunlight maybe).

Now, i can get the exact same exposure at f2.8, 1/400 with the flash on half power (twice as many shots, recharging faster, yay!) but my flash needs to be able to sync at 1/400.

I only initially made the point about aperture not shutter being important, as molgrips wanted a better understanding of flash photography. The first thing to understand is that it’s not like a constant light source, there are *less* variables affecting exposure. I just seem to have been waylaid with more technical details 🙂

I think that ken rockwell link is a decent explanation too though. I don’t think it contradicts anything I’ve said?

FWIW I’m not a great or experienced photographer, I’m just an epic geek (with the doctorate to prove it) and good at getting my head round techy stuff like this.

Anyhow, best bet for someone trying to work it all out is to try it out. Nearly any camera with on camera flash will still let you tweak its power in manual mode, so you can try things out changing one variable at a time, and see how it all works.

I’d suggest firing off a frame in A mode at a reasonable aperture and distance, with flash. Note the settings, apply them in manual and change things from there. Change the shutter first, see what happens. Then put the shutter back and change aperture.

The manual for my flash just told you how to do the things that it does for you automatically anyway. Seemed like a right faff. I am sure there are other tricks that you need manual control for, but I dunno what they are yet 🙂

Gonna get my camera out & have a fiddle……

Tried IA’s experiment above.
ISO200 f5.6 1/200sec with flash = good exposure
Same setting and flash off = totally dark apart from light fitting which can just be seen.
Had to increase shutter speed to 1/2.5sec to get a comparable exposure.

Max shutter sync speed with built in flash appears to be 1/200s on the D80. It’s got FP-high speed sync if you stick a Speedlight on.

Ooh.. lens should be here on Saturday or Monday!

I had a Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro, seemed like a good idea, but hardly ever used it and when I did it wasn’t for macro shots.

Too much messing about and being honest its hard to beat a decent compact for macro stuff especially with the inbuilt IS. Not about to get a tripod set up for insects, odds on they would have flown away too

Just got my Yongnuo YN460 and wireless triggers – working well right out of the box. Seems like a great cheapo option for trying off camera flash.

Sorry this thread got a bit hijacked molgrips. 🙂

Yeah, that’s what I got my YN460 for, it worked for a couple weeks then got stuck on full power. The leds on the back change to indicate power level, but output doesn’t change 🙁

Opened it up, nothing obviously wrong. So I tweaked it a bit, so it’s now stuck on a bit less than full power.

Assuming you have triggers with a tripod thread on the bottom, the stand etc. combo I have is:

http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/item/MF6027/ (copy of the manfrotto ultra compact basically)
http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/item/MF6830/
http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/item/AU3036/

And the strobist gel pack too. You can get cheaper stands etc, but they’re either not as compact, or seem a lot less sturdy.

Grumm, am I right in thinking you use g-series panasonics also? In which case this post of mine might be of interest:

http://www.mu-43.com/f43/g1-white-balance-oddities-annoyances-8312/

Not about to get a tripod set up for insects, odds on they would have flown away too

Could you not use it hand held then?

Could you not use it hand held then?

Bit shaky in my old age and the macro aspect just accentuates camera movement.

Ok when using my birding lens with a beanbag or high shutter speed for birds in flight, but if I ever got the urge for another macro lens it would have to be the IS version

Oh, I have in body IS and it’s brilliant. I was experimenting last night, 1/6 at 300mm equiv whilst reclining in a chair.

Picked it up today. You won’t be able to tell here but the sharpness is tremendous. I took this resting on the stool with anti-shock:

Kitty by molgrips, on Flickr

A couple of 100% crops

Kitty crop 1 by molgrips, on Flickr

Kitty crop 2 by molgrips, on Flickr

stw by molgrips, on Flickr

I have a D80 and SB600 and SB800, I use them both fine outside using the on camera flash as commander.
These external flashes have a sensor on the side to detect the commander flash. Outside all you have to do is angle this sensor towards the camera and then use the swivel head on the flash to illuminate the subject. I have yet to find a real life situation where the flashes don’t fire. A truly amazing system.

Bump for grumm.

I’d never noticed the phallic figurine in the middle of the ST logo before. 😀

Nice results from the lens too, I look forward to seeing more posts with your experiments.

Thanks 🙂

The increase in sharpness from having the camera supported makes me want a tripod now… Would want a short one for macro work but also a normal sized one for other uses. Perhaps this is why you buy heads and tripods separately?

For a few weeks now I’ve had a velbon luxi l (tripod) and it’s got a removable centre to be great for macro work, but extends to eye height (and then some) – I’m 5.10 so should be good for most people…

Got it for £62 from bristol cameras – highly recommend it as a tripod!

DrP

That looks sweet. I read somewhere though that I should get a ball head.. wonder if that’s worth it or not.

Nice molgrips – looks really good and sharp.

Kind of inspired by this thread (and to reward myself for not buying a macro lens 🙂 ) I got some extension tubes to use with my 85mm 1.8.

With my 430 EX II flash, generally bounced off something.

85mm 1.8 with Extensions tubes – Macro test-2 by Grum Wynne, on Flickr

85mm 1.8 with Extensions tubes – Macro test-3 by Grum Wynne, on Flickr

85mm 1.8 with Extensions tubes – Macro test-1 by Grum Wynne, on Flickr

Grumm, am I right in thinking you use g-series panasonics also? In which case this post of mine might be of interest:

Cheers for that – have to say I haven’t got as far with flash as playing with gels yet – but I’m sure I will do one of these days. 🙂

Money plant leaf with some sort of parasite/damage?

No, it’s a cat – obviously. 🙄

😛

Nice pics there.. macro shooting really is endless fun. Everything’s a subject!

Gonna get one of those LED ring lights for macro I think.

Molgrips – that lens does look pretty sharp.
When using the camera on a surface or tripod do you turn IS off? I seem to remember reading somewhere that if you are shooting on a stable platform, you’ll get sharper results with IS turned off.
Might be worth experimenting?

Cheers for the info on the Nikon flashes, CHB.

I’ve got a Velbon Luxi F tripod (v. similar to DrP’s Luxi L) and am pretty impressed with it. It’s not mega stable ‘cos the legs are quite thin, but it has a great working range, folds up nice and small and is sturdy enough for most stuff – only time I felt it moving about too much was in very high wind.

When using the camera on a surface or tripod do you turn IS off? I seem to remember reading somewhere that if you are shooting on a stable platform, you’ll get sharper results with IS turned off.

I also read that. I forgot to turn IS off in that case 🙂

I have however noticed that IS seems to increase shutter lag every so slightly… Definitely snappier (see what I did there? 🙂 ) with IS off.

Most modern IS will detect the camera’s stable and not affect the image on a support.

There will probably be 2 modes for your IS (well 3, including off). Constant, where it’s always on and affects the view in the finder aswell (well, liveview as it’s in-body) and a mode where it only comes on for the shot. In this case, it will give some lag, as when you press the shutter it has to turn on the IS, then take the pic.

No, it’s a cat – obviously.

How in the name of Arnos Grove Underground Station is this a cat?:

Hmm? Why do you have to be so mean and nasty? 😥