Flash for Freezing Motion Question

[PixelRabbit]

I've been using the chickadees for practice trying to freeze motion with flash.

It seems rather inconsistent. and I'm wondering if I'm expecting too much and they are simply a smidge too fast for the on camera flash and max shutter speed of 1/250.

If a chickadee is sitting on the railing and I flash him they often take off and he will be wings spread and awesome (but often a wee bit smudged/ blurred like in this shot), on the other hand, do the same to a blue jay and he looks totally awkward in the moment before he spreads his wings but sharper focus (bigger/slower bird)

Am I on track thinking this way, I'm pushing the limits of using this method with my on camera flash or am I possibly missing something?

 

[macpro88]

What camera and flash?

There should be a "High Sync" flash option that will let you go above the 1/250.

Never really played around with this too much so not sure how this affects the shot.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Canon 60D with on camera flash.

 

[macpro88]

Run through the flash settings on the camera, I am not sure that the on camera flash has a high speed sync option, you may be limited to the 1/250th. With an off camera flash however like a SpeedLite you can get the high speed sync and shot faster than 1/250th

 

[ceejtank]

Im not able to answer your question.. but that cardinal shot is awesome "the creeper"

 

[Big Mike]

The thing to remember is that any flash photo is actually two exposures, one from the flash and one from the ambient light. The flash will often freeze motion (but not all motion) and the ambient is much more likely to be blurred from motion (depending on the shutter speed). The two exposures will likely overlay but where they don't, you get 'ghosting'.

So when you want to freeze motion with your flash, you probably don't want to see any ambient blur, so you will want to limit the amount of ambient exposure...so a fast shutter speed, smaller aperture and/or lower ISO. Or you could shoot in a lower light situation.

Now, as for freezing motion with flash, to really figure out what is going on, you could look up the flash duration at given power levels (from your specific flash model). The higher the power output, the longer the flash duration, and thus the less motion freezing you will get.

I saw an article one time, where a guy wanted to really freeze the motion of a humming bird. He used 4 or 5 SB800 flashes around a pole, each set to the lowest power setting (shortest duration).

 

[Big Mike]

I'm not sure if you're on-camera flash will have the HSS option...and even if it does, it's may not be the best option. For one thing, it severly reduces the output, so your effective ranges gets much smaller. Still, might be worth a shot.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Run through the flash settings on the camera, I am not sure that the on camera flash has a high speed sync option, you may be limited to the 1/250th. With an off camera flash however like a SpeedLite you can get the high speed sync and shot faster than 1/250th

Thanks mac, I RTFM and it looks like I max out at 250 for onboard flash.

Im not able to answer your question.. but that cardinal shot is awesome "the creeper"

Thanks ceejtank I think I'm actually going to pull that out of this thread and put him in a thread of his own, I initially didn't write the OP as a question but changed it and probably should have taken it out since it isn't very relavent lol

The thing to remember is that any flash photo is actually two exposures, one from the flash and one from the ambient light. The flash will often freeze motion (but not all motion) and the ambient is much more likely to be blurred from motion (depending on the shutter speed). The two exposures will likely overlay but where they don't, you get 'ghosting'.

So when you want to freeze motion with your flash, you probably don't want to see any ambient blur, so you will want to limit the amount of ambient exposure...so a fast shutter speed, smaller aperture and/or lower ISO. Or you could shoot in a lower light situation.

Now, as for freezing motion with flash, to really figure out what is going on, you could look up the flash duration at given power levels (from your specific flash model). The higher the power output, the longer the flash duration, and thus the less motion freezing you will get.

I saw an article one time, where a guy wanted to really freeze the motion of a humming bird. He used 4 or 5 SB800 flashes around a pole, each set to the lowest power setting (shortest duration).

I'm not sure if you're on-camera flash will have the HSS option...and even if it does, it's may not be the best option. For one thing, it severly reduces the output, so your effective ranges gets much smaller. Still, might be worth a shot.

Thanks Mike! I have a tendency to come at things backwards, push it till I encounter a problem and then figure out the problem. I never thought of a flashed image as two separate exposures but that makes sense and helps me understand it better. I've gone through the menus and read the manual and I think I've reached the upper critical limit of what I can expect out of the onboard flash.

I think I'm finally finding that I'm being limited by only having the 60D and 18/200 after almost a year. It is time to start considering some purchases (or requests since my birthday is coming up very soon as is Christmas!) and flash is landing high on the list.

 

[rokvi]

If you have a feeder or something that will attract the birds set up, you could use off camera flash, set at a low power which is a faster duration. Only problem is the low power of just one flash might not be enough to overpower the ambient light, which will cause some ghosting. So you might need more lights, all set at low power. High speed sync is available on the 60D only with the flash "on" camera and available "off" camera only with triggers with TTL capabilities. As Big Mike said that won't be the best option as your flash pulses very quickly making it effectively a continuous light source....so it too is affected by shutter speed. That also takes A LOT of power. Your camera (i think) is capable of 1/4,000 shutter speeds. However a flash set to 1/32 will give a duration of approximately 1/22,000. Thats quick enough to stop the motion but like I said before it might not be enough light for your scene. With two flashes set at 1/32 its still a duration of approximately 1/22,000 but with more light!

EDIT: I didn't realize you were talking about on camera flash as your pop up. That is limited to 1/200 or 1/250 or whatever it is for the 60D.

 

[Derrel]

I'm not sure if you're on-camera flash will have the HSS option...and even if it does, it's may not be the best option. For one thing, it severly reduces the output, so your effective ranges gets much smaller. Still, might be worth a shot.

Canon's HSS is a terrible choice for freezing motion, because it is not ONE flash, but a whole sequence of rapidly-fired micro-pulses...it leads to terrible BLURRING on rapidly-moving objects. You want a SINGLE flash "pop!" of very brief duration. The easiest way to get that is to shoot at your fastest synch speed, usually 1/200 on most newer Canon's, and have the flash set to a "fractional" power level, like 1/4 or 1/8 power, or even lower. (Same thing with Nikon's FP Synch setting: rapid, micro-pulses. NOT useful for motion-stopping but GREAT for wide-aperture fill-flash on people in bright sunlight,etc!)

To absolutely freeze high-speed motion, you want the fastest synch speed so that there is a very low chance (or better yet, NO chance) of ANY of the exposure being made by the shutter speed + f/stop's light admission--ie NONE of the exposure should be made by the "ambient light" exposure; you want the ENTIRE exposure to be made EXCLUSIVELY by a brief, single FLASH Pop!. For example, if the sun is really bright, 1/200 second at ISO 400 at an aperture of f/5.6 will make a pretty decent "ambient light" exposure, and if flash is added, then there would be two exposures recorded, and some blurring.

If however, you dropped the ISO down, to 100 ISO, and stopped the lens down one more f/stop, from 5.6 to f/8, and increased the difference to a solid FOUR f/stops below "ambient", then there would be basically no "ambient" exposure made, and then all you would need to do is get the flash to the right power/distance to make the ENTIRE EXPOSURE using ONLY the output that the flash is able to deliver!

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thanks rokvi, the plan is to get off camera flash so your post wasn't wasted

Derrel, I went and looked at my settings from other times when I tried this and found that I did stop down that time and got results in line with what you said I think what it comes down to is I got about the best I'm going to get out of using the on board flash and it's time to be a big girl and get/learn off camera flash

In the first shot my settings were:
1/250 F8 1000 and a flash exposure comp of -1 (should have just dropped my ISO)
I had played around with flash exposure comps of up to -3 that time shooting.

This shot was from another time, there was a bit less ambient light and I stopped down and shot with my background way in the distance so it wasn't lit and isolated the bird.
Shot settings were:
1/250 F11 500
I liked the results better on the bird but not so much on the railing.