Flash duration and freezing motion

Freezing motion is fun

One of the things I always love to do during photoshoots is add some motion to the shots.
If you have ever tried this, you will probably know it’s all about timing. But even then, you probably noticed that sometimes the images are razor sharp and sometimes a bit blurred. How is this possible when you use the same strobes? Read more about flash duration and freezing motion.

The first thing you think is of course, that you probably timed it slightly differently.
But the reason is probably somewhere else.

Flash duration

You may have already noticed the flash duration in the specs of your strobes.
But how do you read this?
Well, that’s the problem when you see 1/1.000-10.000 T.1 or T.5. It probably doesn’t really ring a bell.
I will not make it too technical but see the flash duration as your shutter speed.

When you take a picture in your studio without strobes the images should be black. Because we have to take into account the X-sync in the studio (otherwise you see those nasty black bars) we shoot at 1/125 in the studio. Normally this would make it impossible to freeze motion. But because the flash is just a pulse MUCH faster than 1/125 it’s not a problem.

So that T.1 and T.5 values can be seen as your shutter speed (as a reference, it’s slightly more complicated).
For me, a T.5 value higher than 1/2000 is enough to freeze most motion. Anything higher than 1/5000 is awesome for really razor-sharp motion with models.

I already told you that the values don’t really tell the story. This is because they will vary over the output of your strobe.
Some strobes are super fast on the lowest setting, and some are the fastest on 75%
At first sight, you might think that it doesn’t really matter. But imagine shooting a jumping model on the lowest setting, that would not give you a lot of playroom with your depth of field. So, being able to shoot it with more power is very much needed. This is why most professional strobes have the fastest flash duration at 50-80%.

There are two ways to see the flash duration really fast.

Important gear for freezing motion

Sekonic 858

Although the Sekonic is a lightmeter it also has a great feature that makes it possible to measure the flash duration and even show the graph. But this is an expensive solution.

The fan

A much cheaper, but less accurate, and more fun way is to use a fan.
Put the fan on full power.
Place your camera on a tripod, adjust the strobe from lowest to full power, and take an image every stop (of course adjust the aperture).
In Lightroom you can now easily see in which images the blades are frozen most.

In this video, I tell you a bit more about freezing motion.

And some of the images from the video.

During the workshops, we talk a lot about technique, lighting, coaching the models, retouching, and in essence every topic the attendees want to learn about.
Do you also want to visit a workshop?
Most workshops at fotografie-workshops.nl are in Dutch, but if you let us know a few weeks in advance and we can switch them to English.

How to shoot fire works or Christmas lights

More about the light meter

Elinchrom meets a new dimension in lighting
Photographers play with light, but above all we play with time. Actually for me photography is freezing a unique moment that will never happen again in the exact that same way.
In the studio we basically have two ways to use light. The first one is continuous light, the second is with strobes. You can also use both at the same time or mix them. Supporters of continuous light talk about: What you see is what you get. The strobe supporters say: The power of strobes allows us to create stunning freezing action shots. I’m a supporter of the second group. Don’t get me wrong, I also often work with continuous light, but with continuous light I don’t have the possibility to do a day to night shot with the bright sun, freezing the moment and I cannot play with depth of field (especially creating a deep depth of field) when shooting my medium format camera.

One real disadvantage of strobes is that strobes often have to recharge after every flash, and that can sometimes can take the “flow” out of shoot.

Enter the ELC
Elinchrom strobes were already very fast in comparison with most other brands, but now they introduced one of the fastest strobe in the world. This is a new high end strobe and will catch a lot of attention, not only because of it’s performance, but it will also push photographers to the next level of creativity. It will help you to create pictures which weren’t possible before due to a load of features you will love and never saw in Elinchrom strobes before. Of course there is a lot of information in the manual and on the specsheets, but let me show you what I think are the biggest advantages of these strobes.

A few months ago Elinchrom send me the ELCs to test. It’s really exciting to test photography gadgets so long before their official release. But sometimes it’s also really really hard because, as you can understand, you canot tell anyone and trust me I’m REALLY enthusiastic about the ELCs. And to keep it a secret and only share my experiense with a very small group… believe me it was very very hard. I’m glad we can finally demonstrate the strobes in our workshops, on trade-shows and events.

What is so special about ELC?
Basically the design of the units is like an ordinary Elinchrom strobe. Only the 500 and 1000 watt are in the same housings now. This is easier for transport, and it just looks nicer in the studio when mixing strobes. The major difference however, which will make a lot of photographers very happy, is something that has actually nothing to do with the light itself 😀

The display
We all know this problem, you have to change something in your setup and…. Whoops where was that thingy again…. Is it this button in combination with that button? If you found it, than you have to search between codes like FB, FX, F1, F2 etc. and after that you have a lot more of menu options. To be honest, I love Elinchrom a lot and I work on a daily basis with it, but I need a cheat sheet when I have to change a setting that I don’t use weekly or monthly. Not a big deal of course, but sometimes in a stress full situation it can be…challenging.
Luckely this is a part of history. The new ELC units have a fantastic menu system. No cryptical desciptions, but a very clear display with full phrases and a great menu structure. In one word AMAZING!

In the menu you’ll find, of course the settings for the sky port, modelling lights, beeps etc…. but you’ll find way more than that. You can change the sound signals itself, the speed of recycling, set standby options, use the strobes in series, adjust the delays, adjust the…….. well let me put it this way……and much more.

I hear you think….. “Hey! I heard some settings that I haven’t seen before.” and yes… the ELC strobes can do a lot more than simple flash to freeze the movement. It will fill way too much space to explain everything, but I will show you some basics, which I use very often.