Hi there,

I have a what I thought would be a simple question, but can find a simple answer on Google.

Some friends will have a party for Halloween, half indoor, half outdoor. Ans they asked me to take some pictures, since I’m the photographer. The thing is, it’s not really the kind of photos I make. And I have a little knowledge about using flash.

So here’s my gear :

  • Canon R6ii
  • 35mm 1.8
  • 24mm 1.8
  • Godox V860

I’m a little familiar with the concept of ambient light using a flash, but here’s my question : If I don’t want to crank up my Iso for ambient light, how slow I can go with my shutter speed ? People will probably dance and drink, so without flash, with good light conditions, I would probably go between 1/250 and 1/500. But with a flash, considering that it’s supposed to freeze the subject, how slow can I set the shutter speed ?

Thanks for your help

  • hukugame@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    with flash photography, shutter speed doesn’t matter that much. If you want to use shutter speed faster than 1/200, or 1/250 for most cameras, make sure you have high speed sync on. your flash will pretty much fire at the same speed all the time (about 1/1000th of a second), and high speed sync just means your flash will try to sync up with your camera’s shutter speed, by using very fast burst of light, so you don’t end up with black lines on your shot.

    so regardless of what shutter speed you use, your subject will be lit and frozen, and like you said, using slower shutter speed will introduce more ambient light into your scene, and may even create a cool blur around your subject.

    when you use flash, only thing that really impacts your exposure a lot is your aperture.

    • DrinkableReno@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      This is largely good advice. But shutter speed affects ambient light with flash. For the reason you said. The flash goes off at 1/1000th and then a slower shutter speed can allow additional ambient light to expose the background more.

      Try it out, it’s a fun trick. Take a picture of something in your poorly lit house but like have a kitchen light or something on further away. Start at 1/250, then lower the shutter as far as you can one 1/2 stop at a time and watch as the kitchen gets brighter but your subject stays the same since your aperture hasn’t changed.

      This is relevant for OP because he can either kill the background at 1/250 or show it at 1/60. But the action and people directly in front of the camera will be largely the same with the flash.

      This comes up, especially with temperature imbalances. You can kill ugly lights with faster shutter speed. Slower shutter speeds means you often get two light temperatures, which can look ugly.

    • frenshprince@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I was aware bout HSS, but not about slow sync.
      There is a lot of things to try.

      Thanks for your answer :)

    • Expensive_Kitchen525@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Correct, I will just add few words. High speed sync uses more battery and is usually not that powerful. Some use them in opposite way, instead of nd filters, so in very sunny day, trying to get portrait with f/1.8 with 1/4000s. For halloween party I would not go for this settings, I would probably want to have some ambient lights involved, but froze the action with non hss. What is freezing the action is not the shutter speed. That works for continuous, ambient light. What freezes action is duration of the flash beeing burned. And these times are usually much much shorter, than sync speed, also depends on power of the flash. Full power burns usually longer, than 1/4 power. It may be 1/1000s vs 1/8000s. So. Turn off the flash first, expose for ambient light first. Then turn flash on and play with flash power. Now shutter speed and aputure will affect ambient light, aputure will also affect flash, but shutter speed will NOT affect flash. Have fun :)