Flash mode

[twgreen3]

Today while at a local holiday light event I took some pictures. They all came out blurry. I was using a tripod and rear curtain flash mode. I have also had this problem in a few other pictures I have taken in the past. It almost looks like a weird double exposure. My question is this. Should I use the slow flash mode or the rear curtain (which is slow and rear combined) for night portraits when I want the background exposed as well as the subject? Thanks for the help.

 

[JIP]

I think for this question some samples would help greatly. What is blurry? your subject? the background? both? it would really help to know.

 

[Big Mike]

It almost looks like a weird double exposure.

Actually, every shot taken with flash is a double exposure. One is the ambient exposure, and one is the flash exposure. Usually, the two are in the same spot so you can't tell....or the ambient exposure is so thin that the flash exposure just over powers it.

Now if you have a long shutter speed...which gives you a good level of ambient exposure...that will show up...and may be blurry due to subject movement. Then the flash fires, creating another exposure.

 

[Flash Harry]

Whats the background, if its a cityscape with lights all around, expose for that but have your flash fire on the subject at the beginning of the shot not the end, the blurry effect your getting is due to the exposure being too long and subject movement not frozen, hit the flash first and tell the model to stand as still as possible till exposure ends.