How far will these DSLR flashes reach ?

gus

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Nikolai

Hey Gus

gus wrote:

Yeah ..i dont own a flash other than the ancient one for my AE1 which im not game to try on my 20D.

Am i going to get results with sports shots using a decent flash & the 135mm (thus 216mm on 20D) ?? Will they highlight faces etc at this distance ? Will they do a decent job at 30 feet ?

With 580EX at full power you will get even longer than 30 ft. I'd say 50ft at least.

However... Lighting is extremely harsh, and, as you can imagine, gradient is very steep. I mean, if you prepare to shoot a face 30 ft away and there are faces at 15 - those will be blow out. Also, it will take its sweet time to decide on the exposure (with the pre-flash, etc.), so if you're gonna shoot an fast action you may lose a lot of it..
Another thing - keep in mind that you can't use fast shutter speed with the flash. I tested it at one point (can't find the post, sorry), it loses sync at 1/350th .. 1/250th.

All in all, I never managed to get a quality lighting with the on-board flash at such distances. But very likely it's me...:):

Cheers, mate!

gus

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gubbs

gus,

I'm just trying to learn all this stuff too, so I'm not sure how good this advice is hopefully someone with some experience will chip in and help out.

you could use the flash remotely with an IR/radio trigger to get over the range and fg oe problem. You'd (prolly) have to use it manually, but once you've got it set up for a particular spot that should be it (unless the ambient light changes too much).
You'd need the trigger and a flash meter but you only need a manual flash so the overall costs wouldn't be much different from a 580ex

gus

.

gubbs

gus wrote:

Hey...thats also great info mate. Tks heaps ! Im so not into flash.

Me neither, I keep trying but I've taken very few pictures that I like using the flash. I think the key is to get the flash off of the camera

ziggy53

Nik and Gubbs are giving you great advice, so I just have a little additional.

Flash used in sports is mostly valuable as fill light, not key/primary unless you are going for an effect, i.e. a jump or something.

I agree that, from my experience, E-TTL flash is not practical in motorsports, so full manual is probably best. That means you could go with a simpler flash like say the Sunpak 383, which is safe for modern electronic cameras. I think you would also want the TL-8 zoom head.

The Vivitar 285HV is also viable (used) and has a built-in zoom head. The "HV" is very important as the prior model had dangerously high trigger voltage.

Obviously, any more advanced flash would work as well.

The "Better Beamer" device can give additional distance to any small flash and is worth investigating.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/better_beamer.shtml
http://www.birdsasart.com/accs.html

A major problem with portable flash is recycle time tends to be long, 8 or 9 seconds is not unusual at full power.

Another idea is the use of reflectors instead of flash. You need something very large, maybe a sheet of plywood would do. Cover the surface with crinckled aluminum foil to reduce glare. It would take an assistant to properly hold and aim the sheet, but even under night lighting, you can fill in the shadows. You wind up with more predictable, and continuous, light.

ziggy53

Seamus

ettl

gus wrote:

Yeah ..i dont own a flash other than the ancient one for my AE1 which im not game to try on my 20D.

Am i going to get results with sports shots using a decent flash & the 135mm (thus 216mm on 20D) ?? Will they highlight faces etc at this distance ? Will they do a decent job at 30 feet ?

Hi gus,

if you search for ettl you will be swamped with information. For sports shooting, I use flash when in the pits. I set the camera to av mode and the flash automatically fills in the dark parts. It is great for taking pics of riders / drivers when they have helmets on. The fill flash will light up their eyes.

Hope this helps,

Seamus.

pathfinder

Fill flash is great - and you can do this with the built in flash on the 20D - I use it a lot that way in the sunshine.

One problem with the 20D's built in flash is that there is no High Speed Synch setting, like there is on the 580ex or the 430ex. Hence, you must not use shutter speeds higher than 1/200th with the 20D and the built in flash, and this can be a problem in sunlight.

With the 580ex in High Speed Synch mode you can shoot away at 1/1000th and still have nice fill flash which can be modulated for even more control with Flash Exposure Compensation. High Speed Synch is one of the real advantages of a good external electronic flash.

This image was shot with FIll Flash - you CAN see some detail in Dan Chee's face - without fill flash in the harsh Arizona sunlight, the shadow beneath that black hat brim would have obliterated any detail at all.



Here is a shot of a hawk shot with fill flash via a Better Beamer from 30-50 feet away with a 700mm lens (500+1.4C) on a 1DMkll - Note the catch llight in the eye.

Manfr3d

pathfinder wrote:

With the 580ex in High Speed Synch mode you can shoot away at 1/1000th and still have nice fill flash which can be modulated for even more control with Flash Exposure Compensation. High Speed Synch is one of the real advantages of a good external electronic flash.

I tought that flashsync was limted by what the camera supports,
or is the camera value only what the build in flash supports?

/me is confused

Nikolai

I second that

gubbs wrote:

you could use the flash remotely with an IR/radio trigger to get over the range and fg oe problem. You'd (prolly) have to use it manually, but once you've got it set up for a particular spot that should be it (unless the ambient light changes too much).
You'd need the trigger and a flash meter but you only need a manual flash so the overall costs wouldn't be much different from a 580ex

If you can get your remote flash positioned closer to action where you yourself can not be, that's a great way to do it.

E.g.: this shot was taken from under the bleachers in a *large* gym, probably from 100ft away or so:



My setup? Sunpak Auto 555EX on the 10ft pole, with a 3ft brollybox and a Pocket Wizard receiver (plus a PW transmitter on my Canon).
I was allowed to put the light "in the field", approximately 30ft away from the jazz band. It was high enough and on a side, so it was not blocking any of the audience's views.

I'm not saying this shot is of any particular quality, but at least it gives you an idea what can be done with a remote setup (many, many thanks to Shay who helped me with it ).

HTH

pathfinder

Manfr3d wrote:

I tought that flashsync was limted by what the camera supports,
or is the camera value only what the build in flash supports?

/me is confused

High Speed Synch is a special form of electronic flash firing that mimics Focal Plane Flash bulbs for any EOS camera that supports ETTL or ETTL II- that is - the strobe does not fire once, but a series of rapid flashes while the shutter opening passes across the sensor plane.

At high shutter speeds, the trialing margin of the shutter curtain starts to close before the leading edge has cleared clear across the sensor, so it is a small slit that passes across the sensor rather than an open window.

The Strobe fires multiple shots until the shutter is finally closed completely. This is a feature of the strobe - 580ex, 430ex, 550ex etc, not the camera body as long as the body is ETTL capable.

Nikolai

Interesting...

pathfinder wrote:

High Speed Synch is a special form of electronic flash firing that mimics Focal Plane Flash bulbs for any EOS camera that supports ETTL or ETTL II- that is - the strobe does not fire once, but a series of rapid flashes while the shutter opening rasses across the sensor plane.

At high shutter speeds, the trialing margin of the shutter curtain starts to close before the leading edge has cleared clear across the sensor, so it is a small slit that passes across the sensor rather than an open window.

The Strobe fires multiple shots until the shutter is finally closed completely. This is a feature of the strobe - 580ex, 430ex, 550ex etc, not the camera body as long as the body is ETTL capable.

I found this after some googling. According to this article, hish speed synch is, in fact, slower?

Totally confused!

ziggy53

Nikolai wrote:

I found this after some googling. According to this article, hish speed synch is, in fact, slower?

Totally confused!

Nik,

In the article you mention, there is no major amount of ambient light. The entire exposure is coming from the flash. When a modern automatic electronic flash is used close to the subject, the duration is extremely short. As long as the correct shutter sync speed is used, or slower, the duration of the exposure is determined by the duration of the flash.

With a camera and flash which support "High-Speed Sync" (HSS), you are allowed to select any shutter speed the camera allows. The flash is no longer short in duration, it effectively works more like an old-fashioned flash bulb, and the duration of the actual exposure is, in fact, equal to the normal "flash sync" speed of 1/200 to 1/250 (or 1/500, in the case of some Nikon dSLRs and, I think, the original Canon 1D.)

Since the focal plane shutter of an SLR becomes a slit, after you exceed the sync speed, the exposure for any part of the image is limited by the width of the slit, more than the speed of shutter travel. Any part of the image plane is subject to a shortened exposure, because the slit is blocking the light from exposing the rest of the image plane. It still takes the entire sync speed for the shutter to traverse the image plane.

The bigger question is, "why would you want to do this in the first place?"

The reason this method was developed was to control ambient light, pure and simple. So use the HSS to control ambient light, usually sunlight, with respect to the flash contribution.

Most digicams, with a flash shoe or PC connection, allow flash sync up the fastest shutter speed, without using HSS, because they don't have a focal plane shutter; no slit. So a high quality digicam, I like my Minolta A2 for this, syncs perfectly with any auto flash up to its highest shutter speed. It also works well with studio flash, although studio flash usually has a longer duration, so you see inevitable loss of light at faster shutter speeds.

Clear as mud?

ziggy53

ziggy53

Manfr3d wrote:

I tought that flashsync was limted by what the camera supports,
or is the camera value only what the build in flash supports?

/me is confused

I hope Path and I are answering your question as well?

ziggy53

Jeffro

I have used high-speed sync at many a MX race. It really helps lighten them shadows under the helmet, on bright days, and use it at some rather high shutter speeds on my 550EX...

Attachment not found.

This is a copy of the manual I found on-line, thanks to google...

Jeffro

pathfinder wrote:

High Speed Synch is a special form of electronic flash firing that mimics Focal Plane Flash bulbs for any EOS camera that supports ETTL or ETTL II- that is - the strobe does not fire once, but a series of rapid flashes while the shutter opening rasses across the sensor plane.

It sounds like you are describing....

Attachment not found.

ziggy53

Jeffro wrote:

It sounds like you are describing....

It is kinda similar, except an even higher frequency rate* of flash is used. The exact numbers are not commonly divulged by the manufacturers. The flash output has to be spread across time, so HSS was developed (I think by Olympus) as the method to cover flash sync speeds.

*from Canon itself: http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/flashwork/ettl2/high/index.html

On that page Canon explains, "... the FP high-speed sync flash setting fires repeatedly at roughly 50kHz intervals during the exposure to achieve flash synchronization at all shutter speeds."

More links:
http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/#fp
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/syncspeed.htm#fp

ziggy53

David Taylor

Pathfinder is correct. Check this for more info. I found it useful.

Jeffro

Well isn't that just friggin neat? But it looks like one gosh darn flash burst to me......and fast! Bottom line is....it works for me!:D

Thanks for the the en-light-enment Ziggy.......I can go to bed just a wee bit more smarter tonight.

pathfinder

ziggy53 wrote:

Nik,

In the article you mention, there is no major amount of ambient light. The entire exposure is coming from the flash. When a modern automatic electronic flash is used close to the subject, the duration is extremely short. As long as the correct shutter sync speed is used, or slower, the duration of the exposure is determined by the duration of the flash.

With a camera and flash which support "High-Speed Sync" (HSS), you are allowed to select any shutter speed the camera allows. The flash is no longer short in duration, it effectively works more like an old-fashioned flash bulb, and the duration of the actual exposure is, in fact, equal to the normal "flash sync" speed of 1/200 to 1/250 (or 1/500, in the case of some Nikon dSLRs and, I think, the original Canon 1D.)

Since the focal plane shutter of an SLR becomes a slit, after you exceed the sync speed, the exposure for any part of the image is limited by the width of the slit, more than the speed of shutter travel. Any part of the image plane is subject to a shortened exposure, because the slit is blocking the light from exposing the rest of the image plane. It still takes the entire sync speed for the shutter to traverse the image plane.

The bigger question is, "why would you want to do this in the first place?"

The reason this method was developed was to control ambient light, pure and simple. So use the HSS to control ambient light, usually sunlight, with respect to the flash contribution.


Clear as mud?

ziggy53

Ziggy is dead on correct here - High Speed Synch does NOT help stop fast action at all - It used to be called Focal Plane synch back when SLR's used flash bulbs for portable lighting. The focal plane flash bulb ignited and sayed ignited for almost 1/8th of a sec - thus evenly illuminating the slit as it passes across the film plane.

The MAIN reason for using High Speed Synch today, is to allow the use of fill flash in bright sunlight, where the ambient lighting REQUIRES a fast shutter speed to prevent over exposure - a shutter speed faster than the usual maximum synch speed for standard electronic flash. That was the point I made about the 20D -

The built in flash on the 20D does not support High SPeed SYnch so cannot be used if your shutter speed needs to be faster than 1/250 - but an EOS 580ex or a 430ex can be shifted into High Speed Synch and used for fill flash in sunlight.


Ziggy's answer's are excellent!!

ziggy53

pathfinder wrote:

... Ziggy's answer's are excellent!!

Awe shucks, yours are better, and you're better looking, ... and Andy says you're "da bomb".

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=306412&postcount=12

ziggy53

pathfinder

Yaahbutt, He says that about everybody......

gubbs

Thanks, Ziggy and Jim, great thread...
I didn't even know I had hi speed synch, let alone what I was supposed to do with it