Join Ben Long for an in-depth discussion in this video Using high speed flash sync to dim ambient light, part of The Practicing Photographer.
Hi my name is Ben Long and this week on the practicing photographer. We going to do something really, counter intuitive. I'm going to use my flash, to make the background in this scene darker. And I know that sounds completely backwards but here's how it works. Flash all flash have a sync speed, if you watched my foundations of photography flash course you should know this already, that there is certain shutter speed on your camera that you cannot go past. When you're using a flash, and this is because the shutter on your camera is actually two curtains that open and close. At faster shutter speeds there's actually just a little slit of an opening that passes up and down the focal point.
So there's not time where the shutter is completely, open once you pass about a 200th of a second. That means there's no time that you can fire a flash into your scene and have it expose the entire frame. So, on most cameras once you're using your flash, the camera, there's no way you can dial it past a 200th of a second, sometimes it's a 160th of a second. Im using a Canon Speedlight 600EXRT with a wireless transmitter. This flash has the ability to go into a high speed sync mode.
This allows me to shoot with flash, through the entire shutter speed of my camera. I am probably, in this exercise, going to go up into the thousands of a second. If your flash doesn't have that feature, you maybe to add it through a third party wireless transmitter. A lot of pocket wizard transmitters, have the ability to add high speed sync. So, I'm going to start at the very beginning and take you through this whole process. We're going to go through a lot of steps here, and most of the pictures we take are going to have lousy exposure. But you're going to see how this works. I'm want to start by, taking first, just a normal shot, no flash, so you can just see the framing that I'm doing here.
I'm going to frame Christie up here. I want to, I want to blur out my background, as much as possible, I'm not using a super fast lens but I'm opening up at four. And I get this, nice enough shot, but she's competing with the background. I really want to pull the background down, there are a lot of different ways of doing this. I could try to reduce the field to blur it out, I'm already at a four, that's as fast as this lens will go. I can try to crop in tighter so I don't see as much background but, I like the sense of the environment that she's in. I'd like to keep that, but I just want it to be more about her.
Remember, every decision you make as a photographer, is about trying to help your viewer understand, the subject of the image and the background of the image, trying to guide their eye through the frame. So what I would like to do is have the background darker. Well, I know how to do that, I'll under expose, so I'm going to dial in, say. Two stops of under exposure. And now when I take the shot, okay, the background is darker, here's the shot before, and here's the shot under exposed by two stops. Background is darker, that's nice, but she's darker also. I need more light on her, fortunately, I have a flash right here, so, I'm zeroing on some exposure ideas here.
I shot that. Last shot. I don't know what I shot that at. I shot that at 1/4000th of a second, at a four. Way beyond my flash's synch speed. But, well in fact I'll just show that to you. I'm going to go ahead and attach the flash, get it all hooked up here. And now, I'm running out of hands, now frame up my shot. Or at F4, the camera is flashing the shutter speed of 200, meaning it's saying, I am going to shoot this at 200 and your exposure is going to be off.
If I simply activate high speed sync on my flash. That's all going to change. So on this particular flash, I just have to I can do it in either from the flash or through my wireless transmitter here. And now, something else happens. I get, a shutter speed of 1/5000th of a second. I want to fill this side of her face a little bit. I fire the flash and I get this. Okay, that's looking pretty good. I've got a much darker background. She still looks overexposed, so now I just go through the normal process of figuring out a good flash exposure.
I'm going to take my flash exposure compensation down one stop, and, boy one thing about this Canon 242145, when you hold your camera like that for awhile, the lens drifts, so I have to reframe every time it's very annoying. I know, I should find some real problems to complain about, but that's the only one I've got right now. Okay, that's looking better, the flash is getting a little bit more under control. I think I'd like to just see what happens if I take the background down even more. I'm going to go down three stops under exposed.
I'm doing all of this. And now put your priority mode, now what's cool is that I'm staying at F4 so I'm still getting the soft background. I'm combining two techniques to focus attention here, blurring out the background a little bit and I'm darkening the background. Okay that could almost twilight or night I'm getting into really a curious mix of light here. And the flash on her is not, not too overexposed. What if I wanted to go even darker. All right. Right now I am at, a 6400th of a second at F4. I cannot dial in any more, underexposure using exposure compensation, so I'm going to set it back to where it was, and I'm going to switch out of aperture priority mode, and go to manual mode.
I'm going to dial down to F4. I was at a 6400th of a second, so I'm just going to go ahead and drop that to one 8000th of a second, which buys me, like another third of a stop. So I can go down here. Okay, that's good. Notice the flash is getting darker. As I'm underexposing, so I'm just going to turn my flash exposure compensation back up. I'm just balancing all of these, these three parameters, my ambient exposure, my flash exposure, and I'm doing that through changes in flash power, changes in exposure compensation.
I have two other parameters I can play with. I can play with ISO, which is going to make the flash brighter. I can play with flash positioning, I can also play with aperture, aperture will also make the flash brighter. All of this is covered in. In foundations of photography flash. So, let's go up here. That's pretty good. Background's still getting darker. I'm just curious how far I can go. I cannot take my shutter any further. An 8000th is as far as I can go on this camera. But I can start stopping down the lens, so I'll go from F4 to F56, which will be a difference of one stop.
That's probably mostly going to affect the flash. That's probably not going to do much to the background, but we'll see here. It's still is going to be some under exposure. Its good. My flash is getting a little darker when I turn off my flash power some more. Now at this point, I think I've gone, way beyond what I, what I need in terms of background darkening. I think the better shot is more in here. I like this, this is a good balance, of foreground light to background light. It's dimming the background enough that I've got more attention on her, but it still looks like a daytime shot. But, you can see how much power I have.
With this flash, to actually turn the sun down. I have eliminated a tremendous amount of light from this scene. If I needed to shoot a broader area, if I was shooting a, a couple of people or a bigger scene I would need more flashes to illuminate them, but I would still go through this same process, of first determining the ambient background exposure that I want. I figured out that I needed to underexposed by a certain amount. I then had to turn on high speed synch. And then it was just a matter of balancing all of my normal flash parameters. The difference is, with high-speed sync, I`ve got a lot more latitude on my shutter speed.
Author
Updated
4/2/2021Released
5/19/2013Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
Q: Why can't I earn a Certificate of Completion for this course?
A: We publish a new tutorial or tutorials for this course on a regular basis. We are unable to offer a Certificate of Completion because it is an ever-evolving course that is not designed to be completed. Check back often for new movies.
Related Courses
-
Photography Foundations: Composition
with Ben Long5h 29m Intermediate -
The DIY Photographer
with Joseph "PhotoJoseph" Linaschke2h 39m Intermediate -
Photo Tools Weekly
with Chris Orwig26h 18m Intermediate
-
The Practicing Photographer - New This Week
-
Introduction
-
Previous Episodes
-
Choosing a camera5m 27s
-
Let your lens reshape you7m 26s
-
Working with reflections1m 26s
-
Exploring mirrorless cameras7m 25s
-
Using a tripod3m 33s
-
Wildlife and staying present5m 58s
-
Why Shoot Polaroid11m 12s
-
Seizing an opportunity4m 4s
-
Shooting wildlife7m 24s
-
Using a lens hood4m 48s
-
Working with themes2m 48s
-
Setting up an HDR time lapse7m 55s
-
Processing an HDR time lapse7m 55s
-
Scanning Photos5m 37s
-
Jpeg iPad import process3m 17s
-
Warming up3m 26s
-
Taking a panning action shot10m 17s
-
Shooting a silhouette3m 9s
-
Using Lightroom on the road6m 28s
-
Shooting level2m 42s
-
Photoshop and Automator8m 54s
-
Softboxes vs. umbrellas2m 55s
-
Working with hair in post3m 28s
-
Exploring how to use Bokeh5m 38s
-
Shooting stills from a drone6m 57s
-
Working with models2m 40s
-
Tips for shooting panoramas7m 16s
-
Dry sensor cleaning6m 23s
-
Composing in the center2m 48s
-
Vignetting9m 56s
-
Inspire3m 29s
-
Minimizing camera baggage4m 24s
-
Working without a tripod4m 11s
-
Printer options6m 51s
-
Exploring lo-fi printing options11m 58s
-
IOS macro photography gear12m 25s
-
IR Conversion Part 27m 27s
-
Raw editing in Lightroom mobile10m 35s
-
Shooting a macro insect shot13m 5s
-
A brief history of photography12m 19s
-
Shooting with a Petzval lens9m 49s
-
What is a low-pass filter?4m 35s
-
Teleconverters and lenses5m 12s
-
Media card care7m 19s
-
Dual slot4m 2s
-
Exploring smart previews9m 12s
-
Flying and photo batteries5m 41s
-
Partial vignettes on photos8m 38s
-
360 image editing plugins6m 59s
-
Using a gimbal with an SLR8m 13s
-
Choosing a lens6m 27s
-
Switching camera systems7m 42s
-
Using 360 drones5m 41s
-
VR gimbals4m 16s
-
Working with a photo subject14m 26s
-
Posing a photo subject12m 53s
-
Framing and safety7m 7s
-
RAW converter options3m 59s
-
Drone flight7m 19s
-
Basic abstract photography8m 51s
-
Aspect ratio3m 40s
-
Focus lock on your camera2m 11s
-
Using the Astropad app6m 33s
-
Working with dim sunlight6m 33s
-
Configuring dual cards2m 52s
-
Long lens options4m 45s
-
Moving images from catalogs7m 47s
-
Photography education11m 7s
-
In-camera focus stacking9m 52s
-
Exposure isn't everything4m 17s
-
Why shoot film?8m 55s
-
Culling4m
-
Choosing a film camera8m 38s
-
Analog workflow9m 9s
-
Easily produce giant prints10m 15s
-
Luna Display4m 19s
-
Choosing film7m 50s
-
Photo fads4m 46s
-
Portrait lighting techniques8m 32s
-
Diopter control2m 56s
-
Loupedeck for Lightroom6m 48s
-
Printing small3m 37s
-
Lens flare removal6m 28s
-
Paper choice for prints7m 39s
-
Aspect ratio for portraits2m 33s
-
When in doubt2m 24s
-
Looking vs. seeing2m 44s
-
Do you need a carnet?5m 23s
-
Scan large items6m 17s
-
Create an honest portrait5m 34s
-
A portrait assignment3m 23s
-
Am I good?5m 59s
-
Boredom4m 13s
-
Clichés4m 29s
-
Finding inspiration5m 42s
-
An everyday project5m 47s
-
Learning from students4m 56s
-
Life as a project5m 27s
-
Why take a workshop?4m 33s
-
Photographic honesty2m 52s
-
Up to interpretation3m 27s
-
Photographic style3m 40s
-
Photography drills6m 31s
-
Digital chores4m 23s
-
Photos and words4m 11s
-
Stay-at-home exercises3m 45s
-
Understanding your medium2m 28s
-
Darkroom for iOS5m 15s
-
iOS image editing extensions2m 58s
-
On set: Simplicity4m 5s
-
On set: Corners2m 19s
-
On set: The build4m 30s
-
On set: Same pieces, new set3m 18s
-
Choose a price first3m 20s
-
Rewind: Choosing a camera5m 41s
-
On time and in tune3m 3s
-
Avalanche for aperture4m 8s
-
Evaluating a wide-angle lens6m 14s
-
Auction catalogs4m 56s
-
Get out and shoot (safely)3m 45s
-
Do ruts exist?2m 24s
-
16-bit in Photoshop6m 23s
-
The artist's statement2m 42s
-
Constraints4m 55s
-
Check your goal2m 11s
-
Two kinds of seeing4m 18s
-
Photographers to consider1m 50s
-
- Mark as unwatched
- Mark all as unwatched
Are you sure you want to mark all the videos in this course as unwatched?
This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course.
CancelTake notes with your new membership!
Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.
1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.
Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.
Share this video
Embed this video
Video: Using high speed flash sync to dim ambient light