I need more power, less duration than 580EX-II

For shooting indoor basketball, I bounce the 580EX-II off the gym ceiling. At full power, I'm getting enough light to be about 1 - 1.5 stops above ambient. This produces 2 problems.

1. With the flash running at full power, flash duration is a bit too slow to reliably freeze action.

2. With the flash only 1 stop above ambient, I get blurring from the ambient illumination (Av = 1/250 sec).

What other flash units should I consider. I want more output AND shorter duration. I do not have access to any balcony so a set of AB800's on stands and triggered remotely won't work.

Sunpak 622 will give you another stop I think.

Plus you'd get my personal respect for seeing you walk in with a handle-mount. Sorry I don't know about the duration, though, and for the recycle, you'll certainly want a battery pack.

Most gyms the ceiling is way to high, or clean enough, to bounce anything but a heavy watt second strobe off. Can you clamping/mount your 580 (2 would be better) up in the bleachers, firing them remotely? Maybe you could bounce off the wall behind the backboard? Shooting 1-1.5 stops above ambient the flash will be dominate and with the flash duration at 1/1000 (I think) you should be stopping the motion. Shoot on Manual, most gyms while not the best lighting, are usually consistent.

jack

If you're a hired/official photographer then you'll be able to negotiate some way to clamp up a couple of decent strobes.

Otherwise you're a bit stuck - you won't get much more out of a hotshoe flash than you do with the 580ex. You have the (expensive) option of buying more 580s and using them at a lower power setting to get a shorter duration. four on a bracket would pretty much solve your problem, and other than switching to direct flash that's the only practical on-camera solution I can think of.

Keith,

I think that you are mistaken on #1. I think the flash duration is about 1/1000 second, which will freeze action if there is no ambient light. Your problem is #2. You need more light to overpower the ambient (more than the 1.5 stops that you have now) or you need a higher shutter speed to freeze the ambient. You probably can't get enough flashes to overcome the reduced light output of high speed sync, so you need more output at your sync speed or high powered strobes (studio lights). Timing your shots also helps, e.g. at the top of the jump under the backboard.

That said, I have little experience shooting basketball.

(or a camera with a higher sync speed used at a higher iso)

Unfortunately as you get nearer to 1/1 power, the duration becomes more like 1/400 or 1/500.

This link says 1/833 secs. or less. Fast enough to stop action if the link is correct.

http://www.rodandcone.​com …r-canon-580ex-ii-and.html

I'm no scientician, but maybe the light traveling the bounce distance is lengthening the duration. You wouldn't think so, given the speed of light is so vast, but hey... just going from 0.2 feet to 5 feet away makes a noticeable difference in flash duration, according to that link's test charts (and I do like his methodology) -- so given that the bounce flash might have to travel 150 feet to reach the target, I think his duration may be lengthened enough to see blur.

The flash duration of the 580EX, according to the 580EX manual, is 1/833 or shorter at full power. The distance the light has to travel will not change that so it's not going to stretch out and get longer unless the flash, the bouncing surface, and/or the subject were moving away from each other (Doppler effect) at a high rate of speed.

I'm a big fan of bounced flash when I can use it. Is there a particular reason for not using direct flash for a basketball game? It would seem to me that having a player well lighted would have more importance than softening the light, reducing shadows, or making it appear natural. I don't shoot sports usually, so clue me in.

OP here with some answers. Yes, the flash duration is in the 1/500 or faster zone which is still not really fast enough to freeze action but is not bad either. I shoot available light at 1/640 and that isn't really fast enough either. The real issue is #2 (above) where the 1/250 sync speed allows ambient light to add motion blur, especially when the players are hunched over a bit and shielded from the bounce light.

Direct flash - I can and have done it but the uniforms have reflective strips which glow. I also get red eye. I did an experiment last week shooting high speed sync at 1/500 or faster. It worked and I got the flash to give a nice fill but every shot was suddenly out of focus. Same lens, same body, suddenly couldn't keep up with the movement. I wonder if the additional processing load on the camera's CPU had an impact on its ability to run the focus tracking algorithm.

Our gym is small. No balcany, no upper level seats. The best would be the side rails on the bleachers. I'd prefer a portable system so I can switch ends of the gym between halves and so I can shoot in other gymns.

Ya know, 4 580EX-II ganged together on some bracket may be just the thing

580EX II + gorillapod on the side rails...

You will lose a lot less light because it is traveling a shorter distance -- right? So if you mount the flashes up high -- you can aim down and the light is traveling half the distance or you can bounce and it is still traveling a lot less than bouncing from the ground.

So given the inverse square you should be able to use less power from the 580, therefore shortening the duration.

PacAce wrote in post #6845187
The flash duration of the 580EX, according to the 580EX manual, is 1/833 or shorter at full power. The distance the light has to travel will not change that so it's not going to stretch out and get longer unless the flash, the bouncing surface, and/or the subject were moving away from each other (Doppler effect) at a high rate of speed.

And even if the light had to travel an extra 20', it would take 1/49104000 of a second to do that (light travels at 186000 miles/sec, remember)

Wilt wrote in post #6845752
And even if the light had to travel an extra 20', it would take 1/49104000 of a second to do that (light travels at 186000 miles/sec, remember)

....theres always ONE in the crowd.....

H8Monday wrote in post #6846141
....theres always ONE in the crowd.....

Ordinarily I wouldn't be such a wise-esse, but when people started to comment about light travel distance altering the flash duration, I just had to stop that line of thought! There is something else oddball going on with the reported flash durations at the various distances in that link!