What flash duration will freeze this?!

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Duncan.F

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Hi all,
I would like to have a go at recreating the shots by the German photographer
here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFoUQAzmpsc

What I would like to understand is what flash duration will give this effect. I have Bowens Pro's and am hoping they are going to be fast enough! If not maybe 580ex flash..?

Cheers
 
The faster the better, but as a guess I would think 1/2000sec would do it. The water's not travelling that fast in the vid. Don't believe the manuafacturer's t.5 times though - double them at least to get close to real shutter speed equivalents.

Bowens Pros are pretty quick at full power, or 580EX at maybe 1/4 power?
 
Well the X10 being used has a quoted (t.5) 1/4000 minimum duration but looking at the video & based on the recycle time it looks to be set at about half power, so won't be that short. As pointed out above figures can be deceptive and this head has a range between 1.95 - 1000ws output. Mind you these are rather nice heads and have some unusual features like the 'speedmode' which allows the head to recharge and fire simultaneously giving 20 flashes per second but then the X10 being used is about £1200.

Here's another water based video using the less exotic Profilux Plus range - t.5's of 1/2700 to 1/1600 for the one being used here.

Paul
 
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Nothing to add to Richard's input but that's a cracking video Duncan, enoyed watching that.
 
Hyster said:
Nothing to add to Richard's input but that's a cracking video Duncan, enoyed watching that.
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Alexander Heinrichs is one of my favorite photographers and I wish I could understand German :( He has a superb selection of tutorials on Vimeo the latest of which involves painting/pouring latex over the model and using my favorite modifier - the Fresnel spot.

Paul
 
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Yes, he has very good ideas and is an excellent technician too - it's always the combination of those two qualities that leads to outstanding work.

Back to the original question - I pretty much agree that 1/2000th is fine for this. As Richard says, the water isn't moving especially fast, and anyway it all depends on magnification and direction of travel as well as actual speed, which means that it would involve quite a lot of known data to work out a figure.
 
Just to give you an idea about the duration of flash pulses, these are for a 580EXII
Power v Duration
1/1..... 1.0mS
1/2..... 0.5mS
1/4......0.25mS
1/8......0.111mS
1/16.....0.066mS
1/32.....0.0476mS
1/64.....0.0333mS
1/128...0.0285mS

Bob
 
Thank you for all the responses! It looks like the Bowens Pro may struggle even on full power. So maybe the speedlite is the way to go, I have a couple, its just that the speedlites have shorter durations at lower power, so its a trade off with available power and range. Be fun to try tho!
 
Duncan.F said:
Thank you for all the responses! It looks like the Bowens Pro may struggle even on full power. So maybe the speedlite is the way to go, I have a couple, its just that the speedlites have shorter durations at lower power, so its a trade off with available power and range. Be fun to try tho!
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Borrow some extra speedlights from your friends if at all possible. Double the number of speedlights means you can half your output on all of them, and therefore reduce the time.
 
Michael Sewell said:
Borrow some extra speedlights from your friends if at all possible. Double the number of speedlights means you can half your output on all of them, and therefore reduce the time.
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There can be a slight problem with this approach Michael. If there's a short delay between the firing characteristics of one Speedlight versus another then the flash duration can be extended or even result in a double flash.
An example;
One Speedlight is 0.1mS slower to respond. At full power this simply extends the total flash duration by 0.1mS. At 1/128 power then the first flash is over before the second one begins. It's not likely to impact on the thrown water shot too much but it does become evident in pellet photography.

Bob
 
Canon Bob said:
There can be a slight problem with this approach Michael. If there's a short delay between the firing characteristics of one Speedlight versus another then the flash duration can be extended or even result in a double flash.
An example;
One Speedlight is 0.1mS slower to respond. At full power this simply extends the total flash duration by 0.1mS. At 1/128 power then the first flash is over before the second one begins. It's not likely to impact on the thrown water shot too much but it does become evident in pellet photography.

Bob
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Absolutely true Bob, although I was bearing in mind the OPs subject matter.
I've used this approach myself with no issues, but it was with identical units, rather than a mix and match approach to the speedlights :)
 
I can tell you one thing, and that's that Profoto won't be enough. I had a product shoot recently for a client what required water splashing on the bottle, and my D1's, on minimum output, still couldn't freeze the water.

In the video, the shots are from a way back, so you wouldn't be able to see critical sharpness, but given the choice, I'd go for high speed flashsync.
 
London Headshots said:
I can tell you one thing, and that's that Profoto won't be enough. I had a product shoot recently for a client what required water splashing on the bottle, and my D1's, on minimum output, still couldn't freeze the water.

In the video, the shots are from a way back, so you wouldn't be able to see critical sharpness, but given the choice, I'd go for high speed flashsync.
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If the Profoto's behave like most normal mains heads, then flash duration increases as you turn them down, so for maximum action stopping ability, they should perhaps have been at maximum power. My head at maximum output have a duration of 1/3000 sec and at minimum, 1/1200 (t0.5)

Paul
 
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paul williams said:
If the Profoto's behave like most normal mains heads, then flash duration increases as you turn them down, so for maximum action stopping ability, they should perhaps have been at maximum power. My head at maximum output have a duration of 1/3000 sec and at minimum, 1/1200 (t0.5)

Paul
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Yes. And often the lower the full power output (smaller capacitors) the shorter the duration. The Profoto D1 250 is faster than the 500 which is faster than the 1000. And all are fastest at max power.
 
Whats IGBT?

Could speak with Jason Cole also he's useing the new Broncolor Scoro I think thats got some sick speed :)
 
kiteninja said:
Whats IGBT?

Could speak with Jason Cole also he's useing the new Broncolor Scoro I think thats got some sick speed :)
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IGBT is the electronic system used to quench flash and effectively reduce flash durations. It's pretty much the same system as used on hotshoe flashguns, with the same advantages and the same problems.

It works pretty well on the Einstein, as long as you can live with low power settings and very high colour temp
 
Garry Edwards said:
very high colour temp
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Would this be a problem these days what with how easy it is to adjust the white balance in software? (Assuming it's a consistent high colour temperature)

I was thinking, if less power from your flash head also decreases the flash duration, then could you simply reduce the power of your lights and increase you ISO setting accordingly in order to maintain the correct/desired exposure as a cost effective work around?
 
gman said:
Would this be a problem these days what with how easy it is to adjust the white balance in software? (Assuming it's a consistent high colour temperature)

I was thinking, if less power from your flash head also decreases the flash duration, then could you simply reduce the power of your lights and increase you ISO setting accordingly in order to maintain the correct/desired exposure as a cost effective work around?
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The trouble is Graham, can you guarantee all heads will have the same colour consistency as they are all reduced?
Yes, you can sort white balance out in PP, but only if the white balance is consistent from all sources. If you have a three head setup, and one head produces a warmer light than the other two as it's power reduces, parts of the scene will be warmer where that particular lamp illuminates.

I've had to try and sort out mixed WB in PP, and believe me, it ain't much fun.
 
Wouldn't this already and inherently be a problem though, unless you use all your lights at the same power? So I'd be assuming that your lights can maintain colour consistency, would this work?
 
If you are asking about Lencarta heads, then yes, they have excellent colour consistency across the range. However, the conversation and original quote from Garry was with reference to heads that make use of IGBT to quench the tail, which is used in the likes of the Einsteins to create very short flash durations. Lencarta heads are "standard" flash heads insofar as they do not make use of IGBT, and therefore have a standard flash tail, longer flash duration than the Einsteins or similar heads, but extremely good colour consistency across their range.
 
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I don't publish figures from tests that I've carried out on non-Lencarta products, as a matter of principle - so let's be clear here that I'm talking about the principle here rather than any specific head...

With any reputable make of studio flash head you could reasonably expect a colour shift of somewhere around 300K when going from full power to minimum power, and 300K sounds a lot more than it is, in the sense that if you're photographing people you probably wouldn't notice it - in fact 400 is probably acceptable to most people. Still life is far more demanding, so is fashion photography.

Now, with a hotshoe flashgun using IGBT the shift can be as much as 1000K, and that really is a noticeable difference. If you use the same technology to get the same results (short flash durations) on a studio head, you have to expect the same consequences.
 
Nothing to do with Lencarta or any other make Michael, just a general question for any lights. My initial post was split in two, one for the reply to Garry's post as quoted and the IGBT lights he was referring to and the second was a new topic, I don't think I made it clear though but no big deal.

Thanks for the replies. So it's safe to say the concept would work within reason? This may be worthy of a few tests.

Oh, I guess if colour temp does shift too much you could always go B&W :naughty:
 
gman said:
Nothing to do with Lencarta or any other make Michael, just a general question for any lights. My initial post was split in two, one for the reply to Garry's post as quoted and the IGBT lights he was referring to and the second was a new topic, I don't think I made it clear though but no big deal.

Thanks for the replies. So it's safe to say the concept would work within reason? This may be worthy of a few tests.

Oh, I guess if colour temp does shift too much you could always go B&W :naughty:
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I think the colour temp shift thing is generally over-stated in practise, especially bearing in mind the influence of modifiers (I have a couple of white brollies that are about 500K different), and the influence of the surrounding/environment that can really have a big impact. Not just on the overall colour, but anything vaguely shiny (cheeks?) can pick up coloured reflections from curtains or whatever very easily.

When you get that kind of thing happening, it's a nightmare to correct, but if it's just lights with a slightly different colour output, I would not worry about that unless it was a very critical job - commercial work, fashion/catalogue, that kind of thing where people are making decions based on the exact hue.

In reality, as Garry says, the difference between say 5800K and 5400K is next to nothing. If you looked at the two separately, you'd say they were both spot on and it's only when you compare a couple of prints side by side that you can even see it.

Even then, it's usually okay to correct the overall balance for the main subject that is probably lit by mostly one light, and not worry about the others. It doesn't matter much if the background is a smidge out, or the hair light etc. Even if it's noticeable, it doesn't make much odds.

Edit: 1000K - you'll spot that!
 
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Michael Sewell said:
The trouble is Graham, can you guarantee all heads will have the same colour consistency as they are all reduced?
Yes, you can sort white balance out in PP, but only if the white balance is consistent from all sources. If you have a three head setup, and one head produces a warmer light than the other two as it's power reduces, parts of the scene will be warmer where that particular lamp illuminates.

I've had to try and sort out mixed WB in PP, and believe me, it ain't much fun.
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This is an inconsistent argument

If all the heads, of the same brand & design are set to the same power and same flash duration One would expect the temp to be fairly consistent, regardless of the technology. What you are implying is that one form of technology is more inconsistent than the other. To say that, you need to stump up the data.

If I knew my same brand flash heads shifted colour in action mode or on short durations it ought to be perfectly logical to assume that to minimise the risk of mixed temp's by setting them all to the same power. That would apply to any technology / brand head ranging from monoblocs down to speedlights
 
Richard King said:
This is an inconsistent argument

If all the heads, of the same brand & design are set to the same power and same flash duration One would expect the temp to be fairly consistent, regardless of the technology. What you are implying is that one form of technology is more inconsistent than the other. To say that, you need to stump up the data.

If I knew my same brand flash heads shifted colour in action mode or on short durations it ought to be perfectly logical to assume that to minimise the risk of mixed temp's by setting them all to the same power. That would apply to any technology / brand head ranging from monoblocs down to speedlights
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You're right in theory.
But in practice, we want contrast, interest, pop - not flat lighting. If we set all of our lights to the same power then basically we're taking ourselves back to the 70's with non-adjustable flash power, when the only way of getting different effective power is to change the distance of the light and the modifier - Thanks, but I don't want to go there!

And, with IGBT technology, the ONLY way of getting (effectively) very short flash durations is to turn the power down to the point where you're likely to be struggling with power, so moving a head a long way away to get less effective power from that particular head gets scuppered by the ISL
 
Yes Richard, and as you can see, I haven't made reference to using all the same brand. I also followed your quoted post with this:
Michael Sewell said:
If you are asking about Lencarta heads, then yes, they have excellent colour consistency across the range. However, the conversation and original quote from Garry was with reference to heads that make use of IGBT to quench the tail, which is used in the likes of the Einsteins to create very short flash durations. Lencarta heads are "standard" flash heads insofar as they do not make use of IGBT, and therefore have a standard flash tail, longer flash duration than the Einsteins or similar heads, but extremely good colour consistency across their range.
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And what Garry said
:agree:
 
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The thing is for very fast flash durations, the photographer has limited choices

Stump up a lot of cash for a lot of capacitors & tech - Pro Photo- for example
Stump up comparitivley little money and look at the Einstein, which is a dual mode head (you can apparently set them for high speed with with IGBT or normal speeds and very consistent colour without IGBT)
Stump up what ends up being a lot more cash for a bank of speedlights to achieve the same thing as the einstien

Many battery power packs drive 2 heads with the same burst of energy down 2 cables, which I suppose is slightly more consistent than setting up 2 monblocks to the same power, however most of those packs don't use IGBT so the durations are quite long. People have to pay the money and make a choice
 
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OK I understand what everybody is saying about the options/pros and cons, so what about continuous lighting.....?
 
Continuous lighting can work, if there's enough power to allow a high enough shutter speed - it would be an expensive option though.
 
Okeydokey, Einsteins 640w are about £500 +, I have two 580ex, what about buying a couple of cheap Yongnou's and using wireless triggers. Would 4 flashes give me enough power and would the triggers work 'simultaneously'?!

I will find a solution!!
 
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