1/500th flash syn - give some examples

March 12th, 2010
  • As the title says. My camera has flash sync speeds up to 1/500th of a second which a lot of people seem to see as a selling feature for the D70 and and D40 series. So, can people post some examples of where 1/500th flash would be useful. I'm thinking of maybe outdoors to where the subject is lit and the sky/backgound is darker, but would like some idea's so I can get creative with it.

    I have an SB-600 + Stofen by the way.


  • thanks!


  • Pssst. Nikon lied. You can sync their electronic shutter cameras to a much faster x sync speed. Up to 1/8000. I think that's the limitation of the camera.


  • Sw1tch gots the sweet pix.... nice flickr man...


  • I think it's more advantageous when you have bright sunlight and you want to add fill flash to eliminate harsh shadows...but I have yet to practice with this myself so don't hold me to that.


  • Hi-speed sync can be invaluable in bright sun... Ask any wedding photog. But, for the full benefit you need FP syncing.

    Here's a great article I just stumbled across:
    http://www.rpphoto.com/howto/view.asp?articleID=1026


  • So is it me, or do none of the higher end dslr's have 1/500th x-sync capabilities. The D3, D300, D80, and D60 don't, but the D40 does. None of the Canons do. It sounds like a pretty useful function from what you guys are sayin. Is there a reason taht all these cameras only go up to 1/200th or 1/250th?


  • http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2120/2307637098_278739e493_b.jpg

    This was 1000th sec flash sync with a window as a background in daylight.....


  • Great examples Mav and I can see how it is useful in brighter light. I'm gonna start trying this outside with pictures of our son. Seems like a lot of flexibility on the effects of a faster flash sync speed.


  • Thanks for the tips and awesome examples Sw1tchFX. I'm going to definitely play around with the useful feature of my camera.


  • I'm with Marcus. If you are shooting in bright sunlight and want/need to use a fast shutter speed but need the flash as well then 1/500 would be nice to have. My D200 is 1/250 and that's always been more than enough when I need both speed & a flash ....


  • I love the 1/500th sync speed on my d1h. Great for action sports.


  • They use mechanical shutters, the Nikon D1/D50/40/70's all have electronic shutters. Nikon D1's are high end cameras. The first Canon 1D did it too.


  • You have to attach it so it sees a flash and not the TTL. Radio trigger, optical trigger, sync cable, etc...

    You can get a sync cable for less than $5. It won't be very long, but it will let you play. Also, you can get a cheap set of radio slaves from gadgetinfinity.com or ebay. They're cheap and not the most reliable thing in the world, but they'll let you experiment and spending $30 beats spending $200-$400 for a "pro" set of triggers if you're not planning on spending any more money.

    Plus, does the SB600 have an optical slave mode? That may work. I remember using a nikon flash at a meetup we had where it was set as an optical slave.

    www.strobist.com (http://www.strobist.com)

    Be careful. It's addicting.


  • Pssst. Nikon lied. You can sync their electronic shutter cameras to a much faster x sync speed. Up to 1/8000. I think that's the limitation of the camera.


    How exactly do you do this? I tried and it only let's me take the shutter speed to 1/500 with the flash on and in manual mode. D70s by the way.

    Here's my humbled attempts at 1/500th from yesterday.

    1/500th, f/22
    http://sidersjazz.exposuremanager.com/scripts/expman.pl?rm=view_photo&photo_id=2008-04-20_2026&dir=galleries/5/3&file=2008-04-20_20_large.jpg

    1/500, f/20
    http://sidersjazz.exposuremanager.com/scripts/expman.pl?rm=view_photo&photo_id=2008-04-2041&dir=galleries/5/3&file=2008-04-20_large.jpg

    1/500, f/8
    http://sidersjazz.exposuremanager.com/scripts/expman.pl?rm=view_photo&photo_id=2008-04-20_149&dir=galleries/5/3&file=2008-04-20_1_large.jpg

    I had to use a ridiculously small aperature to get the darkening of the background (f20, f22) which is somewhat silly for portraits. I guess maybe it was just too bright of a day out.


  • I agree, for freezing stuff thats moving fast you need it, especially if you cant get an angle thats away from the sun.

    For slower stuff you can always use a ND, or stack with a polarizer if the mood dictates.

    They have to do some amazing tricks to shoot some of those high speed shots of things breaking and stuff...amazing stuff


  • Because shutter speed and flash duration are not related until it gets out of sync. Typical shutter speeds range from anything up to 1/8000th of a second on a high end DSLR. A flash however has a duration from 1/40000th of a second up to 1/2000th or so depending on it's power output.

    So assuming you're shooting below sync speed at 1/250th. The flash fires for a tiny duration while the entire sensor is exposed. If you open up the shutter you let more ambient light in but the flash still fires for the same tiny duration.

    Above 1/250th the entire sensor is not exposed at once, meaning the rear curtain of the shutter starts closing before the front curtain has finished opening. It's literally dragging a slit across the frame. To illuminate the scene the flash has to fire multiple times. so at 1/500th the flash in high speed sync would have to fire twice, once to illuminate the scene when the first half of the sensor is exposing, and then again when the second half is exposing. Thus more power is drawn from the flash and you've effectively limited your max power output capability of the flash.

    Wow thanks for the explaination!!!


  • 1/500th makes it easier to block out the sun without using more flash power and it's easier for freezing fast action without halos.


    this is about 3 in the afternoon, outside.
    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3242/2338249599_1bcf83efb1_o.jpg


    Good example of action, strobe is at camera right.
    http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2258/2400818946_c3d45e9b01_o.jpg

    Another action example, this guy was going past me pretty quick, and I was only a few feet from him, so there's alot of camera movement. 1/500th blocked out the sun (for the most part, you can see ambient in the background) and was fast enough to freeze him. 1/250th at ISO 100 would mean the strobes would need to have twice as much power and as for the image above, there could be a black halo around him from motion blur.


    2 strobes, one at camera left, another at camera right for fill.
    http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2278/2399993055_37f92fcce3_o.jpg


    oh, and these were done using SB-600's with Nikon's CLS


  • Because shutter speed and flash duration are not related until it gets out of sync. Typical shutter speeds range from anything up to 1/8000th of a second on a high end DSLR. A flash however has a duration from 1/40000th of a second up to 1/2000th or so depending on it's power output.

    So assuming you're shooting below sync speed at 1/250th. The flash fires for a tiny duration while the entire sensor is exposed. If you open up the shutter you let more ambient light in but the flash still fires for the same tiny duration.

    Above 1/250th the entire sensor is not exposed at once, meaning the rear curtain of the shutter starts closing before the front curtain has finished opening. It's literally dragging a slit across the frame. To illuminate the scene the flash has to fire multiple times. so at 1/500th the flash in high speed sync would have to fire twice, once to illuminate the scene when the first half of the sensor is exposing, and then again when the second half is exposing. Thus more power is drawn from the flash and you've effectively limited your max power output capability of the flash.


  • Can someone explain to me why a higher sync flash tend to put more light from the flash into the picture versus dragging the shutter which allow more ambient light in the picture?Because like Garbz said, the flash burst duration is very very shot, like 1/1000s at full power to maybe 1/10,000s at lower power levels. When you're able to use a faster shutter speed with a flash you're proportionally capturing more of the flash burst and less of the ambient light. It's a balance.

    There's a good diagram and overall explanation here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/syncspeed.htm


  • A couple of weeks ago I shot a wedding on a beach in California at about 2PM on a cloudless day...I would've killed for a 1/500th sync speed.


  • Can someone explain to me why a higher sync flash tend to put more light from the flash into the picture versus dragging the shutter which allow more ambient light in the picture?


  • This is not all the same exact shot, but it was the same location all at the same time and it'll give you a good general idea. This is all around 6PM with strong direct sun coming in the WEST facing of our house which is wide open to get the harsh afternoon sunlight.

    First a shot with no flash at all. Obviously you're completely hosed here with a total blowout.
    http://images34.fotki.com/v1149/photos/1/1055548/5664478/DSC_3265-vi.jpg


    Next is 1/125s with flash, and you're still hosed with a total blowout.
    http://images35.fotki.com/v1171/photos/1/1055548/5664478/DSC_3266-vi.jpg


    I did 1/500s with flash next and was going to go back and do 1/250s but unfortunately the sun dipped behind a cloud and it wouldn't have been consistent. Obviously this is much better and you're able to completely neutralize the harsh light and get a balanced exposure on the face.
    http://images35.fotki.com/v1167/photos/1/1055548/5664478/DSC_3267-vi.jpg


    Here's 1/250s with flash from a slightly different orientation with the sun coming directly in the window from the deck. This is "adequate" for harsh light and you can get the light you need on the face with a reasonably balanced expsoure, but the deck is still completely blown out.
    http://images34.fotki.com/v1146/photos/1/1055548/5664478/DSC_3248-vi.jpg


    And then here's 1/500s with flash two shots later. I actually don't like the shot (bad expression, lol) but it's as close to the same exact shot I had as the baseline at 1/250s. You can see now that the deck is actually balanced out in the exposure thanks to the 1/500s sync. You can't really see it in this one, but there's actually detail on the top of her head now whereas it was sorta washed out in the previous.
    http://images35.fotki.com/v1172/photos/1/1055548/5664478/DSC_3250-vi.jpg


    And then here's two more at 1/500s sync.

    http://images28.fotki.com/v1032/photos/1/1055548/5664478/DSC_3252-vi.jpg


    http://images26.fotki.com/v959/photos/1/1055548/5664478/DSC_3257-vi.jpg


    At least for fill flash, you only really need 1/500s in truly HARSH lighting conditions. In our house especially with the direct WEST facing where we get really harsh light in the evenings, the 1/500s flash sync on my D40 is invaluable. If you're trying to freeze action and 1/200 or 1/250s won't cut it, 1/500s is invaluable too. My daughter on a swing is quick enough to really push the limits of 1/250s, and if you combine that with some really harsh light, 1/250s becomes useless. I had to toss a whole session of swing photos from my D80 once because it only does 1/200s flash sync and it just would not balance out the harsh light like my D40 will. The faster sync will also let you shoot at a larger aperture for less depth of field which is useful for portrait photos, although you can just use a neutral density filter for that as somebody already pointed out.

    Daylight 1/500s flash sync photos can start to look "too" flashy if you don't truly have really harsh light, so you'd either want to back the shutter speed off a bit by a stop to 1/250s such that you're proportionally capturing a stop more of the natural light and a stop less of the flash's light if that's still fast enough to freeze whatever action you're capturing, or just stick it at 1/500s but use some negative flash exposure compensation so that it backs off the flash power a bit and then either shoot at a larger aperture or a higher ISO to again proportionally capture more of the natural light and less of the flash's light.

    I'm still learning flash technique so if I'm off on any of this, someone please feel free to correct me.


  • Dunno I'm not that sold. 1/250th does the job for me:
    http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1432/843754872_bf44df3af1.jpg







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