Cheerleader studio shoot..speeds ?

JezSutton

JezSutton

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Jez
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I need some guidence on a shoot this monday..
I am doing a studio shoot for a friends daughter who is a cheerleader and whats some shots of her in flight so to speak.

The studio I am using has a pair of Gemini 750's.

Is 125th going to be fast enough to freeze her in mid flight ?
 
Provided that you haven't got sunlight streaming through the windows a fast shutter speed doesn't matter.

The job of the shutter is to be fully open at the time the flash fires. The actual exposure time is controlled by the duration of the flash, not the shutter.

Typically, flash duration is something like 1/1000th sec, which is short enough to give an overall sharp image but with movement blur on fast movements of hands, hair etc.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Provided that you haven't got sunlight streaming through the windows a fast shutter speed doesn't matter.

The job of the shutter is to be fully open at the time the flash fires. The actual exposure time is controlled by the duration of the flash, not the shutter.

Typically, flash duration is something like 1/1000th sec, which is short enough to give an overall sharp image but with movement blur on fast movements of hands, hair etc.
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SO are you saying try to catch her at the top of a jump with limbs still, rather than on the way up.. ?
 
JezSutton said:
SO are you saying try to catch her at the top of a jump with limbs still, rather than on the way up.. ?
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If you want the movement to be frozen, yes. If totally freezing the movement is important you might be better off using hotshoe flashes which, at low power settings, have much shorter flash duration than studio flash.

But a bit of motion blur usually makes the shot look more real.
 
emm but what about flash sync? 1/250 is the most you can go in most cameras is but it is Hotshoe: flash synchronisation at up to 1/180sec. for Samsung GX10.
 
the specs for the geminis say their flash duration (t=0.5) is 1/2380, so in real terms (t=0.1) I reckon it would be about 1/900 or thereabouts. Bear in mind this is at full power, and with studio lights, the durations tend to get longer as you reduce the power (opposite to hotshoe flashes) so you would be best not reducing the power too much and using NDs if you have to.
 
Thanks guys, I'll post some of the shots next week..
 
Here's a couple of shots with the girls jumping

jump1_1_of_1_.jpg


jump2_1_of_1_.jpg


C&C welcomed
Merry Christmas..
 
can i ask what your settings were for these shots? how did you trigger your flash?
 
englandshottest2 said:
can i ask what your settings were for these shots? how did you trigger your flash?
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both shots were 125th / F8 / ISO100 one at 18mm one at 24mm

2x Gemini 750's set to about 60% power.. I metered the middle girl when standing, at her collarbone.

Both had Big rectangle soft boxes on about 1.2m x .8m

Flash sync was done by Bowens Pulsar units.

Jez.
 
im surprised that they look as sharp as they do on 1/125th.
 
Hand held doesnt matter when you are using flash and no ambient. Shots look good, girl on left looks like shes gurning *** a little :D
 
englandshottest2 said:
im surprised that they look as sharp as they do on 1/125th.
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As I and others keep pointing out, the shutter speed makes no difference unless there are very high levels of ambient (existing) light.
The only job of the shutter is to be fully open when the flash fires. The duration of the flash becomes the shutter speed.
 
Garry Edwards said:
As I and others keep pointing out, the shutter speed makes no difference unless there are very high levels of ambient (existing) light.
The only job of the shutter is to be fully open when the flash fires. The duration of the flash becomes the shutter speed.
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Gerry,
We are not stupid, blind or deaf, just little minions trying out different settings for ourselves.. we don't need some jacked up super Tog telling us what to do.. please let us try it out for ourselves... we did read your first post onto my thread..

I always take on board fellow Togs advice and guidance, but don't try to force it down our throats, thats more likely to not send Santa to your house tonight...
 
JezSutton said:
Gerry,
We are not stupid, blind or deaf, just little minions trying out different settings for ourselves.. we don't need some jacked up super Tog telling us what to do.. please let us try it out for ourselves... we did read your first post onto my thread..

I always take on board fellow Togs advice and guidance, but don't try to force it down our throats, thats more likely to not send Santa to your house tonight...
Click to expand...
All I'm doing is pointing out the obvious. by all means ignore what I and everyone else says, that's your right. And by all means try it out for yourself, but personally I believe in keeping things simple and trying out something that can't possibly make any difference just impedes the learning process. There's about as much point in changing the shutter speed from 1/125th to 1/180th as there is in testing a Reliant Robin on the motorway to see how well it handles at 180 miles an hour:LOL:

The reality, on this and other forums, is that a lot of people simply don't understand this very basic fact. And many of them believe that they MUST set their camera to whatever the manufacturer says is the max synch speed, even though it makes no difference and even though many cameras won't synch properly at the stated max synch speed with studio lights.

And I'm not sure that you did read what I said, you certainly didn't read my name:crying:
 
Gerry,

I did read all of your post's..as I started the thread I think it is only polite..

Merry Christmas and I hope Santa remembers your name too...
 
(quoting from above points mentioned) i see.... makes sense.
 
It's my understanding that shutter speed controls the ambient light and aperture controls the amount of light from the flash. Is that right, Gerry? ;)
 
The shutter controls the movy bit inside and the aperture controls the size of the hole :D
 
welly said:
It's my understanding that shutter speed controls the ambient light and aperture controls the amount of light from the flash. Is that right, Gerry? ;)
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Errr it's GARRY :D

While Garry makes a SHOUTING point about shutter speeds being irrelevant, some here seem to have not entirely understood that point - so calmly - I'll try to elaborate :)

Any flash exposure has 2 parts - 1 is the exposure for any ambient light, and 2 - is for the exposure with the flash

Where 1 is so low as to record nothing at all - i.e. pressing the shutter to fire at 1 second, 1/8th second, 1/60th second, 1/125th second, or whatever your flash sync speed it means you only get black - so nothing records - then clearly the speed of the shutter is making no difference - there is not light about, so all is black

2 is the flash exposure

Here a burst of light is emitted to light your subject when otherwise nothing would be recorded as in 1 above

The power of the flash then records as over/correct/under exposed due entirely to it's power v the aperture. The actual flash may last only 1/500th second or up to 1/30,000th sec

During such a shot - all your shutter speed is doing is allowing the shutter to open... then a flash goes off... then the shutter closes

Imagine in a dark room your shutter speed is 1 second

You shoot it, and nothing at all records

Now you fire a flash when the shutter opens... if the flash is bright enough to correctly expose a shot at f8, you have a shot in the bag

Depending on how powerful that flashgun/studio light was - the burst of light emitted to achieve a correct exposure of f8 may have been 1/500th sec or even 1/30,000th sec. If it was massively powerful it could have been 1/million th of a second (where you see shots of bullets stopped dead as they enter a balloon for example)

Your camera's shutter was open for the same length of time - but records nothing at all - the flash is powered to record an image at f8 - so whatever speed the flash lasts is the effective exposure time. Hence you can have a 1 second exposure of your shutter, but the flash can stop dead a bunch of cheerleaders, or if powerful enough, a bullet too

So changing your shutter speed from 1/125th to 1/180 makes no differnce at all

Get it now?

HTH

:):):)

DD
 
You forgot to mention ISO Dave ;)
 
Kev M said:
You forgot to mention ISO Dave ;)
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:razz::razz::razz::razz::razz:

:LOL:

Errr... ISO also has sod all to do with it !!!

If the exposure is right at 100 ISO - then shoot at 100 ISO for max quality

AND - raw or jpeg has sod all to do with it too - but that's another story

:D

DD
 
DiddyDave said:
:razz::razz::razz::razz::razz:

:LOL:

Errr... ISO also has sod all to do with it !!!

If the exposure is right at 100 ISO - then shoot at 100 ISO for max quality

AND - raw or jpeg has sod all to do with it too - but that's another story

:D

DD
Click to expand...

ISO affects the exposure as well, from my experience. Try shooting at 1/90 at f8 with ISO100 and then with ISO1600!

DiddyDave said:
If the exposure is right at 100 ISO - then shoot at 100 ISO for max quality
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edit: oh.. yeah, like you say :)
 
Dave and Garry, I'd just like to thank you both for the flash advice. It's the sort of thing I need to read over and over again and is finally beginning to sink in!

Jez, congrats on the shots, I think they're both pretty good!
 
welly said:
ISO affects the exposure as well, from my experience. Try shooting at 1/90 at f8 with ISO100 and then with ISO1600!



edit: oh.. yeah, like you say :)
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Oh FFS - you try & make things simple to understand ... :bang::bang::bang:

:LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL:

DD
 
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