Strobed sports photos - presenting a problem

[djl_editor]

Hey all, just signed up, so far liking the forums, and I've got a quick question that is causing us a lot of concern.

I'm the editor for a team photographer for one of the NHL teams, and we've run into a problem with our equipment. We're using Nikon, but it's a technical thing, so that shouldn't matter. We have 16 strobes set up around the arena to light the surface, so flash sync speed is definitely becoming a problem.

The Nikon D70S has a max sync speed of 1/500, and it works perfectly with the strobes. Literally 99% of our shots are absolutely TACK sharp, and can be printed to any logical size. Unfortunately, the D70S isn't exactly a high resolution camera, at only 6MP, so over some time we bought 2 D200's, a D2XS and a D300. The thing is, all of these cameras have a max sync speed of 1/250, which is not up to our standard. 1/250 looks fine on newspaper, and looks decent when resized to a computer monitor size, but the photo needs to be PERFECTLY sharp to satisfy our clients, and to satisfy the print quality that we are used to providing. The D70S (and even the D50, which shares the max sync speed of 1/500) is the only camera of the bunch that delivers acceptable quality.

It's a shame, because the D200/300 and D2XS are obviously better cameras, and it's very frustrating that we are stuck with $10k worth of remote cameras (at best).

What do most strobed shooters shoot with? I understand that this is a Canon forum, so talk about Canon stuff, I know the ins and outs of both brands' cameras that they offer. Is it a matter of just accepting 1/250 in most cases? Because if that's the situation, it's really disappointing because it's just not good enough when compared to what our clients are used to receiving from the D70/50's. Is there a "trick" to get the light to work with these slower sync speed cameras? We're really stuck here, and hope we can find a better camera that will work with our lights.

I'll stick around to answer and questions, thanks in advance.

[dmwierz]

dj - Welcome to POTN. Sounds to me that you're OK and don't know it.

The D70 and D50 are CCD sensor cameras (like the Canon 1D) and as a result of this, they can sync with an electronic shutter. The D200/D300 and Canon 1D MkII and later are all CMOS sensor cameras, and need to rely on a focal plane mechanical shutters, thus the max sync speed is 1/250s. But, don't panic! :shock:

The sync speed, and correspondingly, the shutter speed, is almost irrelevant when it comes to "stopping action" since you are using strobes. We Canon shooters regularly and gleefully use camera that "only" syncs at 1/250s, yet still get extremely sharp images.

How can this be? Well, when you shoot with strobes, the shutter, aperture and ISO are controlling the exposure for ambient light, and the duration of the flash is actually stopping the action. Strobes are normally set to expose the image properly, and then the camera is set several (at least three, but more is better) stops below this. So what happens is the camera opens the shutter for 1/250s, but the ISO and aperture are set to values that produce a dark image, so no real image is exposed by the ambient light. Then, during the 1/250s that the shutter is open, BAM! the flash fires (somewhere in excess of 1/1000s duration - if you're lighting a pro arena, you're probably using Speedtrons?), and it's this short flash of the strobe that actually exposes the image.

Imagine taking a picture in a totally dark room. You fire the shutter at 1/250s and no image is captured by the camera, then the strobe fires and exposes a shot, stopping the action with the very short burst of the strobe. This is what you want to accomplish with shooting sports with strobes, however your ambient is considerably brighter than "dark" cuz the players need to see as do the fans :) . So, the photographer chooses exposure levels (ISO and aperture) that are several stops below the flash exposure to simulate a dark environment from the camera's perspective.

If you are saying that the D70 and D50 are the only cameras that are sharp, my guess is you are setting your ambient (in camera) exposure levels TOO high. I know, this sounds counter-intuitive, but it's the way shooting with strobes works. It's also possible that the strobes are set to a lower power than necessary, but I'm guessing whoever set up the strobes did it correctly.

What you do get with the 1/500s Vs 1/250s sync speed is one more stop of head room between your strobes and your ambient exposure, which helps if your ambient is so bright (or the strobes are too dim) that you're having trouble overpowering ambient light level with the strobes.

With 16 strobes (how many of these are used at once by one photographer?) this shouldn't be an issue. What kind of strobes are they and which model? Are they monolights or pack and head, and if pack and head, how many heads are being powered off each pack? I presume you're using Pocket Wizards to trigger the strobes?

Hope this helps.

Dennis

[AdamLewis]

The D70 and D50 are CCD sensor cameras (like the Canon 1D) and as a result of this, they can sync with an electronic shutter. The D200/D300 and Canon 1D MkII and later are all CMOS sensor cameras, and need to rely on a focal plane mechanical shutters, thus the max sync speed is 1/250s. But, don't panic! :shock:



Dont be mad but I just wanted to say that the D200 is a CCD. Only CMOS Nikons are the D2's, D300, and D3.

[djl_editor]

Thanks for going so in depth, Dennis.

I'm aware of what you're talking about, but it just doesn't seem to work. I know that the flash SHOULD be what's freezing the action, because it is definitely overpowering the ambient. Unfortunately the D50/70 is constantly better than the D2XS/D300 even. I'll include two 100% crops form both cameras to compare.

We're using Elinchrom Style RX 1200's, I believe. I'll be honest, I know 10x more about cameras than I do about lighting, so I'm really not very well versed in lighting. I think he has them at about 3/4 power to get a better recycle time. I can mention to him to try all lights at full power, just to take the hit in recycle time to get better results.

What you're saying does make sense, I'll keep it in mind. It's unfortunate I don't have full control over the situation, as I'm not the photographer, but I'm sure he'll try it if I think it will work.

Here are the crops, this is typical of what we get from both cameras. The bigger ones are D300, the smaller are D70S.

D300:

[djl_editor]

D70S:

[dmwierz]

Dont be mad but I just wanted to say that the D200 is a CCD. Only CMOS Nikons are the D2's, D300, and D3.

Yeah, I lumped the D200 and D300 together. My bad. Nikon switched from CCD to CMOS between the 200 and the 300. All Nikons look alike to me, though (spoken like a true Canon fan boy).

[n1as]

Here's my ignorant input.

Could it be your strobes generate a rather long duration pulse? Maybe 1/200 seconds long? If so, then the high sync speed would be an action freezing issue.

As long as the strobe is 2-3 stops above ambient light, you should be getting nice sharp stuff.

How long is the light pulse from the strobes?

- Keith -

[djl_editor]

Here's my ignorant input.

Could it be your strobes generate a rather long duration pulse? Maybe 1/200 seconds long? If so, then the high sync speed would be an action freezing issue.

As long as the strobe is 2-3 stops above ambient light, you should be getting nice sharp stuff.

How long is the light pulse from the strobes?

- Keith -

I'm not certain, I can check tonight.

[bigjon0107]

I'm not certain, I can check tonight.


I just looked it up, and according to the specs sheet, the flash duration on the 1200's is 1/1450th of a second. That should be more then enough to stop any action. The ony thing i can think of is that he is exposing to closely to the ambient and that is where the blurriness comes from. If you look though the sports section on this forum, you will see many strobed shots and 90% of them were shot at 1/250th and all of them are pretty sharp. If for some reason you can not find any, just let me know and I wil put up a few images from when i strobed, exposing 3-4 stops below ambient.

[djl_editor]

This is really annoying me.

Last night I shot with a Nikon D300, Nikon D2H, and a Nikon D50, and the D50 still was WAY ahead of the other 2 "professional" cameras. Now, I know it's not the camera's fault, but I can't figure out how to adjust the lights accordingly.

For the first period, I put all of the lights on full power.

This is our typical setup for the D70S, I was a bit misleading in a previous post to save time:

8 AlienBees B1600's on full power, their flash duration on full power is 1/1800, so that's no problem

8 Elinchrom Style RX 1200's on 3/4 power, with a flash duration of 1/1450

With the D70S, under these conditions, we'd shoot at 1/500 f/6.3 ISO 200, These photos come out perfect, but 6MP isn't exactly up to Getty's resolution requirements.

So last night, I turned all the lights up as high as they could go; all 16 on full power. With this amount of light, on the D2H, I shot at 1/250 f/9 ISO 200. As far as exposure went, it was fine, but it just wasn't sharp.

I'm really lost on how we can make this work. I'm buying a D300 next week, and want to figure it out before it comes in. Is shooting at f/9 typical under strobes? It sounds like a bit much to me. Any help is appreciated, send me a PM if you'd like to exchange emails or IM's, it would make this faster.

Thanks

[re_guderian]

How can this be? Well, when you shoot with strobes, the shutter, aperture and ISO are controlling the exposure for ambient light, and the duration of the flash is actually stopping the action. Strobes are normally set to expose the image properly, and then the camera is set several (at least three, but more is better) stops below this. So what happens is the camera opens the shutter for 1/250s, but the ISO and aperture are set to values that produce a dark image, so no real image is exposed by the ambient light. Then, during the 1/250s that the shutter is open, BAM! the flash fires (somewhere in excess of 1/1000s duration - if you're lighting a pro arena, you're probably using Speedtrons?), and it's this short flash of the strobe that actually exposes the image.

Imagine taking a picture in a totally dark room. You fire the shutter at 1/250s and no image is captured by the camera, then the strobe fires and exposes a shot, stopping the action with the very short burst of the strobe. This is what you want to accomplish with shooting sports with strobes, however your ambient is considerably brighter than "dark" cuz the players need to see as do the fans :) . So, the photographer chooses exposure levels (ISO and aperture) that are several stops below the flash exposure to simulate a dark environment from the camera's perspective.


I have absolutely nothing to add to this thread, other than to say "Thank You" for a very short, very concise explanation of how this works. As someone trying to master flash photograpy, and dabbling in some indoor basketball shooting, I've always wondered how this worked...

[lungdoc]

I am no expert, but if not sharp at 1/250 and sharp at 1/500 with all else essentially the same and fast strobes I'd have to think that you are still getting some contribution from non-flash light to the 1/250 pictures; or perhaps the strobes aren't perfectly synced so you're getting in effect two exposures on the 1/250 shots...but that should give a ghost not a blur. I'd think of the following:
1) Try the D50 at 1/250 to be sure you are reproducing the problem and isolating it.
2) Try the D2H at ISO 100 and f/11 to further reduce the non-flash part of the exposure (although should be darn low already unless your venue is really bright...)
3) Try some practice shots if possible with just one on-camera flash to see if effect is related to the strobes or to the shutter speed
4) Ask the question in the lighting forum here (and maybe sports forum as well)
5) Try strobist.com for further answers.

[Croasdail]

So here is the issue with using stadium strobes, and more of them. As long as they all fire EXACTLY at the same time, you get the short duration. But... and this is a big but.... if you have strobes firing even 1/50th of a second after another, you end up with an extended flash duration. The more strobes, the more chance you may have problems. So the question comes down to how were these setup? Usually you don't have sets of more then 4 tied together. 16 sounds like you have 4 sets of 4. Second question is how are they being triggered? Are they hard wired all to one master trigger, or they individually triggered. Usually house lights are perminentaly installed and hard wired together triggering off a plug at floor level with something like a pocket wizard. If done properly and cable lengths are close to same - you don't have issues. You are working at very low voltages so any extra resistance in the lines can cause a strobe to fractionally trigger later resulting in a longer flash duration. This is really uncommon but does happen.

With temporary setups where each strobe is trigger individually and not hardwired, Pocketwizard Max's have a function to bring synch back together by triggering all the strobes on their own channel so they can be sync'ed up. This is a very pain in the ***** process though.

Short answer, have your photographer do some testing using the other paired sets. See if the problem is still happening. It could just be a problem of the strobes are not triggering at the same time. You can do testing also by individually turning off strobes and testing eliminating them as a variable.

After all that, also check to see what level of sharpening you have the cameras set at. In the second d70 image you have a large sharpening artifact showing up in the highlights... and the D300 shots show no sharpening at all. I would hate to say the issue could be that simple, but you just never know.

[Croasdail]

This is really annoying me.

Last night I shot with a Nikon D300, Nikon D2H, and a Nikon D50, and the D50 still was WAY ahead of the other 2 "professional" cameras. Now, I know it's not the camera's fault, but I can't figure out how to adjust the lights accordingly.

For the first period, I put all of the lights on full power.

This is our typical setup for the D70S, I was a bit misleading in a previous post to save time:

8 AlienBees B1600's on full power, their flash duration on full power is 1/1800, so that's no problem

8 Elinchrom Style RX 1200's on 3/4 power, with a flash duration of 1/1450

With the D70S, under these conditions, we'd shoot at 1/500 f/6.3 ISO 200, These photos come out perfect, but 6MP isn't exactly up to Getty's resolution requirements.

So last night, I turned all the lights up as high as they could go; all 16 on full power. With this amount of light, on the D2H, I shot at 1/250 f/9 ISO 200. As far as exposure went, it was fine, but it just wasn't sharp.

I'm really lost on how we can make this work. I'm buying a D300 next week, and want to figure it out before it comes in. Is shooting at f/9 typical under strobes? It sounds like a bit much to me. Any help is appreciated, send me a PM if you'd like to exchange emails or IM's, it would make this faster.

Thanks

Just read your follow up.... why the heck are you guys driving so many strobes at the same time. If you really are firing all 16, I am not even a little surprised your having these issues. In Dean Smith we use 4 Elinchroms. This is a 20,000 plus arena. In a smaller local university that holds 9000, we have used 2 AB800's BOUNCED, or 4 580 ex's. I think you making life more difficult on yourselves then needed. That probably explains why your all the way up at f9. I am happy with f4 - f5.6 at a low ISO. Nothing wrong with going that high if need be.... but having to drive that much light to get there could be contributing to the issue. More points of failure.

[bigjon0107]

I agree, i was just going to chime in after i reread some of this stuff. Why do yall have so many strobes firieng at one time? When i strobe, i am usually at f/5.6 tops. ususally closer to f/4 depending on the venue. But they bring up some very good points. how are you triggtering the stobes? There could be a dely inbetween the fring of a few strobes, then firing of the rest. Casuing a double exposure and hence the ghosting. But then, that would not explain why one camera body would perform fine while the others would not.

I would try cutting it down to 6 strobes at most. 2 at each end of the ice then 2 at center ice MAX. If not just one in each corner totalling 4 lights.

[Croasdail]

1/500 th is stopping the action on the other bodies... not relying on fast flash to freeze action.