Help please. Strobing Indoor Motocross

So, I am shooting Arenacross and offering the prints for sale to the racers. The races are held in a poorly lit indoor Horse arena. The lighting is Fourecent tubes. Manual settings come in around 2.8 1/125 and iso1600. The dust and smoke from 2-stroke exhaust only make things more interesting.
I experimented at the first race with 580EX's on stands placed at strategic locations around the track. Each was assigned a channel, and I would fire the desired flash, or flashes by selecting the corresponding channel on my STE2. It worked really cool.
The problem is that you lose motion blur when you fire a flash. Freezing the knobbies in place and making a 40mph motorcycle look as if it is standing still....frozen in time. NOT a good look. With the flashes, I could bump up the shutter speed a little and get a few more keepers, but at the expense of the motion blur.
Is there another technique for me to try to show some motion? Second curtain, slower shutter? something?

Flash Fired: 2.8 1/200 1600

One way to get motion blur using a flash is to use a slow enough shutter speed and have the aperture open wide enough so that enough ambient light will register on the image to show the blur.

Another way is to use a strobe or a flash with a long flash duration, like the Metz 58 AF-1 which has a flash duration of 1/125 at full power.

Leo, I appreciate the advice, but I shoot Canon lights, 580's and 430's. A metz is just not an option for me.
As for leaving the shutter open longer, as it is I am tracking a target that is moving in many planes, sometimes all at once. Panning is one thing, but these bikes are not just passing, they are moving up and down, and twisting and tilting and moving in all sorts of odd directions. Getting undesireable subject blur is what I am trying to avoid, while still showing motion of the wheels. Its a tall order I know. I'm just trying to think outside the box, and bring some control to an out of control situation, and ultimately improve my results.

Regards

-Todd-

What's wrong with the 2nd picture (shot without the flash) and what are you trying to achieve by shooting with the flash? I guess that's what I don't understand (I thought I did but based on your 2nd post, I must not have). Are you saying that you need to shoot at 1/200 to avoid motion blur while still keeping the wheels looking like they're turning?

Use second curtain and choose a slow enough shutter speed that you get a little motion in the wheels. It may be faint, depending on how much ambient light is contributing to the equation, but it will be there. Second curtain is used to get the blur behind the sharp image rather than in front of it. If the information posted with your pictures is correct, then there isn't much difference in the exposures you made with and without flash. If you used 1/125 or 1/60 shutter speed and maybe f/4 instead of f/2.8, you might get the effect you are looking for. Just realize that florescent lights are greenish, so the blur will most likely have a color cast to it. You might also consider capturing action that reveals activity without requiring motion blur to define it.

I've found that my sense of "art" doesn't sell pictures. I shoot drag racing and the racers seem to like those easy to shoot starting line pictures with the wheels up and everything crisp. Maybe there is a dirt flying, wheels in the air equivalent with motorcycles. I don't know because I don't have any experience trying to sell that genre.

You could try panning.

PacAce wrote in post #4858532
What's wrong with the 2nd picture (shot without the flash) and what are you trying to achieve by shooting with the flash? I guess that's what I don't understand (I thought I did but based on your 2nd post, I must not have). Are you saying that you need to shoot at 1/200 to avoid motion blur while still keeping the wheels looking like they're turning?

The second shot is one of the better keepers of the eve. It shows the 'best' results that I got from not firing the flash. It may not have been a good example of my question.
The first shot it sharp. The entire subject, rider motorcycle, and unfortunately, the frozen-in-time-tires.
The second shot shows the required motion in the tires, but at 1/125th of a second, it shows the motion of her elbow, and there are places that you can see the vertical motion of the bike.
I guess I am trying to have my cake and eat it too. (always hated that phrase)

See, in roadracing, if you choose a low shutter speed to pan, and express motion, the subject is moving on one plane.... left to right, not up and down, and or twisting, and tilting, so the pan shows a sharp subject and a blurred background. There are some examples of panning in a corner on this forum, that shows the tail of the car moving closer and causing it too to be out of focus... as an exception to this, but I digress..
Panning only works on the SIDE of a subject, but moms and dads want to see the faces of their kids. Preferable the eyes behind the goggles. I tried flashes to momentarily stop the madness, but have also stopped everything. I am searching for creative ways to find a compromise. As I edit the pics I am finding that distance from the flash effected the amount of stop-action that I was getting, while still offering up a little support in the subject-sharpening area.
The point is, the lighting in this arena forces a shutter speed that is difficult to keep all of this motion in check. 1/125 on subjects that move around this much makes a low keeper rate. 1/250th works well for me outdoors, but I just can't get there in this lighting, so I have tried to pad the light a little with flash.
There is another 2 rounds of racing this fri and sat. I am going to try second curtain flash and see how that looks.
I appreciate the input of everyone on this. I'm trying to figure out how to bend the rules a bit. Of course, increasing my skill at keeping my focus point on subject can't hurt either!

Regards -Todd-

Hey.... whatabout hi speed sync? Doesn't that increase the flash duration? Can anybody chime in here?

Thanks.

H8Monday wrote in post #4869796
Hey.... whatabout hi speed sync? Doesn't that increase the flash duration? Can anybody chime in here?

Thanks.

Yes, it does but it'll only work at shutter speeds of 1/320 and faster and you would lose two stops of light right off the bat just switching to HSS, i.e. you half your flash working distance. And the higher you go in shutter speed above max sync, the more power you lose. But if you're not using the flash now at full power, HSS might work for you, assuming 1/320 isn't too fast for what you need.

Just be aware that whenever you use HSS, you are firing the flash at full power so recycle time is going be at its max (you'll only get one chance at "the" shot).

PacAce wrote in post #4869985
Yes, it does but it'll only work at shutter speeds of 1/320 and faster and you would lose two stops of light right off the bat just switching to HSS, i.e. you half your flash working distance. And the higher you go in shutter speed above max sync, the more power you lose. But if you're not using the flash now at full power, HSS might work for you, assuming 1/320 isn't too fast for what you need.

Just be aware that whenever you use HSS, you are firing the flash at full power so recycle time is going be at its max (you'll only get one chance at "the" shot).

Thanks for the help Leo. I wasn't aware of the full power deal. I had been firing the flashes ettl, and as you can tell by the 2 above pics, The exposure is pretty close already, so I don't think they were fireing wiht much power. They allowed very quick recycle times throught the night, with one batt change after about 3 hrs of shooting.
And if I have to go to 1/320 to get the flash into a longer duration, then I'm afraid my background will be too dark. It will look like midnight moto
Man, I can't wait for summer, so I can just go outside and shoot PeeWee Football again!

Todd