In this video I'll show you how to
combine high-speed sync flash, and wide
open apertures to create amazing photos
in your small home studio...
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey and you're watching
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In my previous video I looked at flash
sync speed in my small
home studio... well today I'm gonna do
high-speed sync flash in my small home studio.
Now there's really in my mind two
reasons to use high-speed sync flash... the
first one is if you want to combine the
ambient light with flash while
photographing a fast-moving subject, and
the second one is the one we're gonna do
in here, which is where you want to
remove ambient light while using flash,
but shooting with a really wide
aperture lens.
Now for that to make a bit more
sense let's get a model in.
Let's get a light set...
but let's not use it yet and
let's get shooting.
So to help me out
today I've got the amazing Roger...
Roger is gonna be the model for this, and
before I get into high-speed sync flash,
I'm gonna take a picture at my normal
flash settings.
So I'm using my Olympus camera with a
f/1.2 lens and the whole
purpose of having a f/1.2 lens is to shoot
at that really wide aperture for a
shallower depth of field, so I've doubled
in 1.2 as my aperture, 250th of a second,
my flash sync speed...
ISO 200 the native ISO for my Olympus
camera...
I'm gonna take a picture without
flash just to see what I get.
Okay Roger, here we go so... at those
settings and without flash I can still
see Roger, which means the ambient light
and ambient light color is going to
combine with the flash and potentially
that could ruin my picture.
So what I want to do is get control of the light
by getting rid of the ambient light in
the room.
Now I could do that really
easily by turning off the room lights,
but that has a few problems, the first
one being I wouldn't be able to focus
and you wouldn't be able to see the
video, and of course I could change my
camera settings, but one of the reasons
we can see Roger in this image is
because I have such a wide open aperture.
If I was to close that down, Roger would
disappear, but of course I'd lose the whole
reason four using this particular lens,
that's where high-speed sync flash comes
in to save the day.
So what I'm looking at is the shutter
speed, now normally I'm working at my
flash sync speed, 250th of a second for me,
high-speed sync flash means I can go
past that limitation, but how fast should
I go, well the only way to find out for
sure is to take some test pictures so
let's do that.
I'm going to change my shutter speed to
500th of a second, and take
basically the same shot of Roger, and at
that setting well I can still see Roger,
he's a little bit darker, but he's
definitely there.
Let's change it again to a 1,000th of a second, take the
same shot once more, and Roger is almost gone.
I can still see him a little bit so
let's try two thousandths of a second,
and that setting... well there's a few
hotspots.
I can live with those but
basically Roger has disappeared, and
that's what I'm looking for, no flash no
picture, from that point I can then add
in my own lights, which will be under my
control...
so I'm controlling the lighting,
I'm controlling the colors, it's just a
much better place to work in your small
home studio.
So let's add some flash.
When I put the trigger on...
it actually limits
my camera to a shutter speed of 250of a
second... that's the flash sync
speed for my Olympus camera...
your mileage may vary....
the fastest shutter speed I can
go with normal flash, but I need to shoot
at 2000th of a second to get to
those sorts of shutter speeds...
I press the sync button or high-speed sync
button on the trigger, and that's it now.
I can choose 2000th of a second
and shoot away, so I'm using the
flashpoint Explorer 400, and the
flashpoint R2 Pro trigger... it's really
important that the trigger and the flash
work together as a high-speed sync system.
Let's just take a test picture,
see what we get, well it does work but
it's a little bit too bright.
Now normally I would reach for my flash
meter, and start taking some meter
readings, but one of the downsides of
high-speed sync is unless you have a
very specific flash meter,
you can't meter it, sadly my trusty flash
meter doesn't do the job, but trial and
error is perfectly fine.
So if that's too bright,
I can just turn the flash down in power,
take another shot and that looks
fantastic, really nice lighting, nice
shallow depth-of-field,
and that looks really good, high-speed
sync works by effectively strobing the
flash as the shutter mechanism passes
across the sensor.
Now in reality it's a bit more complicated
than this, but it's remarkably easy to use.
Okay so I think everything is set
technically...
Let's actually take some photographs...
so Roger
are you ready?
let's do the shoot.
Here we go... want to lift the sword up...
yeah, pop it on your shoulder.
Alright go for it,
So is it where you get to be a little
more kind of aggressive..
Okay success give me some smoke... okay
well that was fantastic fun, and having
Seth here doing the smoke absolute bonus
for me!
So one more thing you need to
know about high speed sync and it is a
little gotcha...
make sure you do the first bit... about
setting the shutter speed... that wasn't
there just to demonstrate how it works...
it's part of the process,
because if you change your shutter speed
with high speed sync flash,
you change the output
of the flash...
that's just how it works.
Now if you've enjoyed this video and well
you got a question, leave me a comment below.
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I'm Gavin Hoey thanks for watching.