Photography

33 readers

1 users here now

A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

communick@viewfinder.pro

rglullis

Minimum shutter speed with a speedlite (alien.top)

submitted 2 years ago by frenshprince@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi there,

I have a what I thought would be a simple question, but can find a simple answer on Google.

Some friends will have a party for Halloween, half indoor, half outdoor. Ans they asked me to take some pictures, since I’m the photographer. The thing is, it’s not really the kind of photos I make. And I have a little knowledge about using flash.

So here’s my gear :

Canon R6ii
35mm 1.8
24mm 1.8
Godox V860

I’m a little familiar with the concept of ambient light using a flash, but here’s my question : If I don’t want to crank up my Iso for ambient light, how slow I can go with my shutter speed ? People will probably dance and drink, so without flash, with good light conditions, I would probably go between 1/250 and 1/500. But with a flash, considering that it’s supposed to freeze the subject, how slow can I set the shutter speed ?

Thanks for your help

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] hukugame@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)

with flash photography, shutter speed doesn't matter that much. If you want to use shutter speed faster than 1/200, or 1/250 for most cameras, make sure you have high speed sync on. your flash will pretty much fire at the same speed all the time (about 1/1000th of a second), and high speed sync just means your flash will try to sync up with your camera's shutter speed, by using very fast burst of light, so you don't end up with black lines on your shot.

so regardless of what shutter speed you use, your subject will be lit and frozen, and like you said, using slower shutter speed will introduce more ambient light into your scene, and may even create a cool blur around your subject.

when you use flash, only thing that really impacts your exposure a lot is your aperture.

[–] DrinkableReno@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

This is largely good advice. But shutter speed affects ambient light with flash. For the reason you said. The flash goes off at 1/1000th and then a slower shutter speed can allow additional ambient light to expose the background more.

Try it out, it's a fun trick. Take a picture of something in your poorly lit house but like have a kitchen light or something on further away. Start at 1/250, then lower the shutter as far as you can one 1/2 stop at a time and watch as the kitchen gets brighter but your subject stays the same since your aperture hasn't changed.

This is relevant for OP because he can either kill the background at 1/250 or show it at 1/60. But the action and people directly in front of the camera will be largely the same with the flash.

This comes up, especially with temperature imbalances. You can kill ugly lights with faster shutter speed. Slower shutter speeds means you often get two light temperatures, which can look ugly.

load more comments (3 replies)