High Speed Flash with Canon 20D

[Extirpate]

I have been trying to get pictures of water droplets but with the flash sync 1/250 it's been next to impossible. If I buy an external flash would this increase the sync? Is there anything I can do to get a flash at say 1/1000 or more? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

J. Thompson

[crn3371]

Yes, with an external flash, and using high speed sync you can use faster shutter speeds. I'd think that the trick is going to be in the timing of your shutter release in order to get the droplet.

[Extirpate]

So I just need to find an external flash with that capability. :) I am getting pretty good with the shutter release, I have a cable so I don't really have to use the view finder just keep my eye on the droplet. It's good fun and I'm getting good results apart from the speed.

[LewisImaging]

canon speedlight would be good, get the 580ex if you afford it!!!

[scottbergerphoto]

If you are depending on the flash to freeze motion, High Speed Sync is not going to allow you to freeze motion. It actually makes the shutter speed the rate limiting factor. High Speed Sync causes the flash to fire a series of pulses such that the flash is almost a continuous light source. It is also reduced in intensity. HSS is usually used when you just need to fill in some shadows on a face on a sunny day and such.

[LewisImaging]

hmmm... hot lights would probably work best in that case.

[scottbergerphoto]

hmmm... hot lights would probably work best in that case.
You could also try using Stroboscopic Mode on the flash. I've seen people freeze moving dice that way.

[LewisImaging]

i'm not the OP, but good idea.

[Titus213]

Hmm, how about a dark room, camera on tripod, shutter open, flash tripped to expose water drop? That would effectively give you the stopping power of the flash duration which is pretty short.

[jojohohanon]

Hmm, how about a dark room, camera on tripod, shutter open, flash tripped to expose water drop?

Why would you need a dark room and shutter open? Couldn't you just shoot at Tv = maxsync, and close the aperture until your flash is at max power?

[Extirpate]

Some awesome ideas, I might try the hot lights, just hard to get stuff over here in Korea. :P Waiting for things in the mail is painful, but when it gets here... like christmas. Thanks again you guys rock.

[LewisImaging]

a lot of people use garage lights or whatever you call them. juts run over to your local hardware store (like home depot here in the us) and see what they have. good luck!

[Travis F]

I have tried doing water drops also. It is quite fun!

I posted an example on another forum and one of the membeers there suggested speeding up the strobe time or frequency of the flash to stop the motion.

I will try to post a link to that thread if you are interested in reading it.

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=27781

Hopefully that works. Can you post some results of what you are getting now?

Travis

[TheSteveMadden]

Some flashes vary their power by varying the time that the flash is on. 1/4 power is one forth the time duration of a full power flash and is measured in ten thousandths of a second - much faster than the fastest shutter. With that in mind, the wider you open up your lens and the closer you are to the object, the shorter the apparent exposure time will be as you'll need less flash output. I'm not certain that this is how the SpeedLite's work, though, but it should be easy enough to test.