I want to share with you a really cool photographic technique using flash. It's one of my absolute favourites. It can be used for any kind of flash, whether it's a camera-mounted speedlight or a studio flash.
The technique is called slow synch or dragging the shutter. You may know that your camera has a maximum shutter speed that you can use when firing a flash. This is the 'synch speed' and is commonly between 1/125 and 1/250 of a second. You cannot use a faster shutter speed than this (unless you use a special feature called 'high speed synch' - we won't go into that here).
You can, however, go slower!
There are two really great reasons for using a slower shutter speed with flash. The first is that you can combine a frozen image with blurred movement. You can get a nice sharp portrait of a person, created by the pulse of light from the flash, and show motion blur as well. Perfect for the greedy photographer - it's like having your cake and eating it too!
Try it with the camera mounted on a tripod for a sharp background or handhold the camera to blur the background.
The second reason to drag the shutter is to balance ambient and flash. Basically, by using a longer shutter speed, you give the light in the environment (which is probably less intense than your flash) time to register on your sensor. This means that you can take a photo on top of One Tree Hill at night with your friend lit by the flash, and show the beautiful city lights behind as well.
If you would like to find out more about ImageMe photography workshops, please contact me on lisa@imageme.co.nz
ImageMe - Auckland portrait photography
2 comments:
One of my fav techniques too! If anyone is interested in Lisas workshops, I say go for it! I have done nearly of them and I gained so so much from it!
Thanks Nykie, it's been a pleasure having you in the workshops!
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