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Flash Duration: How to Avoid Blurred Flash Images

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Flash Duration: How to Avoid Blurred Flash Images

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'Flash duration' isn't a very glamorous topic, but it's certainly something that every single photographer that uses flash should be aware of.

When we first learn photography, we are taught that ' flash freezes motion', and although this is true, it is an extremely relative term. In this article we're going to look at exactly how frozen the motion actually is, and how we can limit that motion or movement in our shots as much as possible when using flash.

Take a look at the side by side shot below of me photographing some silver cake decorating balls falling onto a metal plate. Both of those images were taken with flash, but both display very different results. Your idea of ' frozen motion ' may be different to somebody else's.

What is Flash Duration

Oddly this is a piece of information that is always simply assumed by many. Very few lighting companies ever explain it and when they do they simply quote a figure that holds little relevance to most of us. For example, when you see flash duration quoted by lighting companies, it looks like this:

But what does that string of letters and numbers mean?

Essentially the flash is not instant, but in fact lasts a period of time. That period of time where the flash is visible is measured in fractions of seconds. So for example we have the flash above lasting a 220th of a second at its longest point. The second, much bigger number is 10,000th of a second and that is the fastest possible flash time this particular strobe has to offer.

The numbers in brackets after that means something else which I wont be covering in this article as I'll be focusing on practical tests not charts and graphs. Essentially the T number refers to the amount of power dissipated at certain points of the flash duration. You'll most commonly see T0.5 and T0.1 listed. T0.5 measures the time it takes for 50% of the total flash power to be dissipated and T0.1 is the time it takes for 90% of the total flash to be emitted.

Essentially, I believe you need to be looking at the T0.1 number as this best describes the actual flash duration in my opinion and be wary of readings that don't show any T value or only show the T0.5.

PRO TIP: If you ever want to check the flash duration of a potential strobe, simply Google 'pdf manual of strobename' then simply scroll down to the bottom of the pdf in question and look for 'Technical Details' and it'll be listed in there.

Should I Care About Flash Duration?

The short answer is: maybe. If you're shooting weddings with speedlights at a venue of people, then flash duration is hardly going to matter at this level. Your flash will most certainly freeze aunty Susan as she tries to mount the cake table at 2am. If, on the other hand, you are a still life shooter who will be photographing liquid in motion and trying to focus stack multiple frames that need to be painfully accurate: then yes, flash duration is absolutely critical.

For those of us somewhere in the middle who photograph fashion or portraits: yes, flash duration is important and I recommend you being aware of it, but most of the time you won't notice it.

I only worry when the subject is dancing and/or I have a wind machine stripping the color out of a models hair at full blast. Most strobes will have shooters like us covered, but I still think there are things we can be doing to ensure we get the cleanest and sharpest results with whatever strobe we're using.

Testing Flash Duration

This is a pretty basic test and anybody can do it. Yes, there are plenty of very precise ways of measuring flash duration with sound triggers and infrared gates etc. but here I'm simply dropping silver cake decorating balls from a height of 3 feet onto a metal plate below and pressing the shutter with my finger. I tested a variety of strobes, including a speedlight, and I took shots with all of the flashes at max power as well as lowest power to show the differences.

My objective was to see movement in the objects, so I kept my aperture at a consistent f/22 to show as much in focus as possible. As a result of this high aperture, I adjusted the ISO dramatically on the camera to compensate for exposure differences in the strobes at max and min power.

The Results

The Old

First I tested a very old flash head that is about 20 years old. This is an extreme case, and you're unlikely to see results like this with any modern strobe, but I felt it might be useful for comparison.

The strobe in question was an old Bowens Esprit 500W head.

Many older strobes like this will produce movement blur at any strobe power, but in many cases you will get a clearer image at maximum power. If you look closely, you'll see that at max power you get a ball outline and then a tail of motion. This is where the flash dumps a huge amount of power at first and then, as the gas in the tube subsides, you get that tail of movement that slowly disappears.

In the minimum power shot, the ball doesn't have a clean edge that then tapers off; instead, you simply get nothing but blur. This is how many older strobes dealt with lower power outputs. You simply got the gas burn over a period of time compared to a quick, short dump of a little bit of power.

As I mentioned above, this is rare, as most modern strobes do not have this same way of releasing power gradually anymore. What I will say is that you will start to get this consistent blurred look with old and tired flash tubes. Essentially, the xenon gas within the tubes is getting tired and less efficient.

If you start to think your images are blurred a little at the edges, then consider doing a test like this to see if it's the bulbs that need replacing.

The New

Now let's look at some more modern strobes and see how they perform.

First up, let's see one of the standard Godox heads; or, in this instance, the Pixapro Citi 600 TTL.

The resulting images are a little more in line with what we're used to seeing with flash, especially the minimum power shot. In that image the balls have been captured relatively cleanly and there is minimal blurring, especially when compared to the max power image.

In the max power shot, there is some blurring. Although it's nowhere near as bad as in older strobes, I'd still consider that a problem for anything that is moving at any speed in your image.

The New-er

Next up, I tested my everyday workhorse strobes: the Bowens XMTs. These heads are 500W which is a fairly standard power output for most monobloc style strobes. In fact, all the strobes I tested here are monoblocs and if you're not sure what I mean by that then take a look at the power pack explanation below.

To the well-informed among you, you'll likely already know that the Bowens XMTs are made by the same company as the Citi 600's mentioned above. The Chinese company Godox makes both of these strobes, albeit the Bowens manufacturing requirements were a little different and in my opinion a little stricter, resulting in a slightly more consistent head, but then the higher price would also reflect that.

Regardless, take a look at the resulting images below to see how it faired in this flash duration test at max and minimum power.

As always, I'll let the images above do the talking, but as before, the max power shot shows significantly more blur than the min power shot. I'd argue that the XMT was marginally more consistent in producing cleaner, crisper shots at both max and min power, but like I said, it's marginal.

The... Speedlight

Seeing as I had everything set up, I thought I might dig out my old speedlight to also run the same test just to see how it faired. Full disclosure, I've not used a speedlight in decades so this old Nikon SB-600 is a little out of date, albeit hardly used. My point being that I have no data to say how much better speedlights are today compared to what we're looking at here.

Either way, with that knowledge in mind, take a look at the resulting images and take from them what you will.

As with the strobes, the max power shot produced a very blurred shot, but the min power shot was surprisingly crisp.

The only other element worth mentioning here is that the speedlight at max power acted like the older strobe did. It releases a lot of power over a period of time, not a big hit of power, which then tapers off as modern strobes do. This results in a more consistent blurred image compared to a crisp one that tapers off to blur.

Conclusions

Was there anything to learn from all of this? What does this mean to you as a flash shooter? Should you be looking out for certain flashes in the future? Should you be shooting any differently? All of these questions are valid, but you firstly need to know where you stand in all of this.

Are you a still life shooter that needs to capture crisp water splash shots for focus stacking? It's unlikely you'd be reading this if you were, but if that is you, flash duration is one of the most important elements in your image. In fact, I'd argue that the flash you use is even more important than the camera you use. But for the rest of us: yes, flash duration is important and it's a serious factor that needs to be considered when taking an image; no, it's certainly not a deal breaker.

If there is one major thing we can all see immediately from these test shots, then it's the fact that lower flash power shots produce FAR crisper and sharper images when compared to the max power versions.

In this digital age of incredibly impressive cameras at low prices, this info that movement in a shot is so heavily affected by flash power is actually very useful. Cameras are now so good that even at high ISOs, the image quality is excellent.

But let me explain...

Let's say you have a model shoot and she is wearing a flowing dress. Let's also say that she is dancing and you have a fan blowing her hair and dress as she moves. This resulting shot will have a lot of movement, what with her moving, her dress moving, and her hair moving. Catching the sharpest possible image is likely going to be a priority, so what should we set our camera and flash to so we can achieve the sharpest shot?

We can set our camera to ISO 50 for the best possible image quality in-camera, but we would then have to turn our strobe power up quite high. Yes, we could open up the aperture, but with her dancing around, we don't want to miss focus at f/2.8. We want at least f/5.6 so as to get her all focus.

One option here could be to shoot at ISO 400 or even 800 quite comfortably in terms of image quality (especially for any decent camera made in the last few years) and then turn the power of our strobe way down so as to ensure a crisp and sharp image.

Can you now start to see how this knowledge of how flash duration works can actually aid you in your decision making?

When you buy a digital camera now, it may not be simply a case of switching your ISO to 100 as soon as it leaves the box and never touching it again. Playing with your ISO and flash power may now enable you to get sharper images in the future and it's definitely worth your consideration no matter what you're shooting.

Closing Comments

Of course, there are ways around all of this. There are ways to shoot at ISO 50 and have the flash pumping out at full power and get some crisp shots... it'll just cost you the same as a small bedsit in central London.

For example, the rather impressive Profoto D2 boasts some very eye-wateringly fast flash durations thanks to its specific 'freeze mode' (albeit recorded at t0.5 not t0.1... naughty Profoto.)

But like I said, this incredibly fast flash duration comes at a cost...

If ultra-fast flash durations is your priority, then you would do very well with this strobe if you can afford it. For the rest of us though, being aware of where our strobes falls short in flash duration is useful and if need be, we should be willing to adjust our ISOs to get a crisper shot without fear of losing too much image quality when we inevitably upload the final shot to Instagram anyway!
About the author: Jake Hicks is an editorial and fashion photographer based in Reading, UK. He specializes in keeping the skill in the camera and not just on the screen. If you'd like to learn more about his incredibly popular gelled lighting and post-pro techniques, visit this link for more info. You can find more of his work and writing on his website, Facebook, 500px, Instagram, Twitter, and Flickr. This article was also published here and is being republished with permission.

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Flash Duration: How to Avoid Blurred Flash Images

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'Flash duration' isn't a very glamorous topic, but it's certainly something that every single photographer that uses flash should be aware of. When we first learn photography, we are taught that ' flash freezes motion', and although this is true, it is an extremely relative term.

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Why Do Bad Photographers Think They Are Good ?

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Why Do Bad Photographers Think They Are Good ?

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Why Do Bad Photographers Think They Are Good  ?

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The Ansel Adams Gallery made this 4-minute video about Ansel Adams' Moonrise, Hernandez, a photo the gallery calls Adams' "most famous and iconic image." Sales director Brittany Moorefield shares the story behind the photo while presenting an ultra-rare mural-sized print from the early 1970s.

Adams shot the photo while returning to Santa Fe from northern New Mexico on November 1st, 1941.

"I observed a fantastic scene as we approached the village Hernandez," Adams says. "The moon was about two days before full, and the buildings and crosses were illuminated by a gentle, diffuse sunlight coming through the clouds of a clearing storm."

As he rushed to make the photo before the light faded away from the landscape, Adams was unable to find his light meter. Here's his account of what happened as told in his 1983 book Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs:

I could not find my Weston exposure meter! The situation was desperate: the low sun was trailing the edge of clouds in the west, and shadow would soon dim the white crosses ... I suddenly realized that I knew the luminance of the Moon - 250 cd/ft2. Using the Exposure Formula, I placed this value on Zone VII ... Realizing as I released the shutter that I had an unusual photograph which deserved a duplicate negative, I quickly reversed the film holder, but as I pulled the darkslide, the sunlight passed from the white crosses; I was a few seconds too late! The lone negative suddenly became precious.

Back in his studio, Adams worked to bring out the extreme contrasts in the image, which was extremely difficult to print, particularly at larger sizes. Over time, Adams reinterpreted the photo by printing it with a darker and darker sky, bringing out both the moon in the background and the crosses in the foreground.

Adams went on to make over 1,300 prints of the photo himself over the course of his career, and the photo made a splash in the art world when it sold for a then-unheard-of price of $71,500 at auction in 1971. The same print hit the auction block again in 2006 and ended up selling for $609,600.

(via The Ansel Adams Gallery via Fstoppers)

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The Story Behind Ansel Adams' Iconic 'Moonrise, Hernandez'

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The Ansel Adams Gallery made this 4-minute video about Ansel Adams' Moonrise, Hernandez, a photo the gallery calls Adams' "most famous and iconic image." Sales director Brittany Moorefield shares the story behind the photo while presenting an ultra-rare mural-sized print from the early 1970s.

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The Free & Open Source Image Editor

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The Free & Open Source Image Editor

This is the official website of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).

GIMP is a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and more operating systems. It is free software, you can change its source code and distribute your changes.

Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done. You can further enhance your productivity with GIMP thanks to many customization options and 3rd party plugins.

High Quality Photo Manipulation

GIMP provides the tools needed for high quality image manipulation. From retouching to restoring to creative composites, the only limit is your imagination.

Original Artwork Creation

GIMP gives artists the power and flexibility to transform images into truly unique creations.

Graphic Design Elements

GIMP is used for producing icons, graphical design elements, and art for user interface components and mockups.

Programming Algorithms

GIMP is a high quality framework for scripted image manipulation, with multi-language support such as C, C++, Perl, Python, Scheme, and more!

Key Component in a Desktop Publishing Workflow

GIMP provides top-notch color management features to ensure high-fidelity color reproduction across digital and printed media. It is best used in workflows involving other free software such as Scribus and Inkscape.

Extensibility & Flexibility

GIMP provides extensibility through integration with many programming languages including Scheme, Python, Perl, and more.

The result is a high level of customization as demonstrated by the large number of scripts and plug-ins created by the community.

High Quality Photo Manipulation background image by Pat David ( cba )

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GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program: The Free and Open Source Image Editor

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Remove ANYTHING from Complex Perspectives!

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Remove ANYTHING from Complex Perspectives!

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Remove ANYTHING from Complex Perspectives! - Photoshop Tutorial

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5 Ways to use Color Gels in Studio Photo Shoots

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5 Ways to use Color Gels in Studio Photo Shoots

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5 Ways to use Color Gels in Studio Photo Shoots

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5 Ways to use Color Gels in Studio Photo Shoots Learn 5 easy ways to use Color Gels in studio photo shoots! For more editing and photography tutorial videos every week, make sure to SUBSCRIBE!

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I loved physics class in high school. In college, I earned minors in mathematics and engineering. But I was left scratching my head when I first read about how the Inverse Square Law was explained for flash photography. This explanation, graph, and calculator will make it much easier than many other explanations out there.

Inverse Square Law Explained

The mathematician will tell you that the Inverse Square Law says that the intensity of a force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from that force.

You'll say, what?

Then the mathematician will attempt to clear it up by writing down the Inverse Square Law formula, Intensity = 1/D².

The most basic dummy caveman explanation for the Inverse Square Law is that a force will have a drastic dropoff in strength as it moves away from the source and then shallows out. That's the no math explanation and here's what the caveman Inverse Square Law graph looks like:

Basic Inverse Square Law Calculator

Play around with the slider to see what happens. Note how the first decrease in strength is by 75%, and next by only 14%.

How does the Inverse Square Law apply to photography?

In photography - which literally means "writing with light" - the Inverse Square Law describes the behavior of light.

Even though it describes the behavior of all light, it is most useful in flash photography.

For this next Inverse Square Law calculator, we'll look at a flash with a guide number of 60. Guide numbers are the topic of this post. It's not important now, just know that for this example you'll get 100% strength at a distance of 60 meters.

Play around with the slider to see what happens to the flash power on your subject as you change the distance in 30-meter increments.

Cool, interactive sliders, but what's a practical photography application for the Inverse Square Law?

Imagine you're doing a group portrait with one powerful flash. You'll need your wide lens because they're fifteen people across. They're backlit of course because nothing is ever easy. You zoom out the flash head and put a shoot-through umbrella in front to ensure coverage of everyone in the photo.

Now, do you place the flash as close as possible to your subjects or back away from them? How do you justify your answer?
Look at the following diagrams.
In the first one, we've placed our flash 10 feet from the center of the group, which is 30 feet wide. I'll do the trigonometry for you, but the people on the ends are 18 feet from the flash - almost double that of the center.

If the people in the center are getting the proper flash exposure, the people on the ends will only be getting approximately 25% of that power. They'll be dark, underexposed by two whole stops.

In the second diagram, we move the flash further away from the center of our group. Thirty feet away. Trigonometry tells us that the people on the ends are 33 feet from the flash - barely more than the center.

The folks on the ends are getting 83% of the light that the people in the center are getting. That's a difference of only about a third of a stop - a difference imperceptible to most people.

The actual power setting of the flash has nothing to do with the relationship of light hitting all of your subjects.

An Easy Inverse Square Law Rule of Thumb

If you want subjects to be evenly lit from one side to the other, crank up the power and make the distance of the flash no less than the width of your subject. The further the better.

If the subject is ten feet wide, place the flash at least ten feet from the center.

If the subject is thirty feet wide, place the flash at least thirty feet away.

And so on.

Make the triangle look like the second diagram above, not the first.
If you're looking for a dramatic falloff, like if you just want to light up your subject but not the background, dial down the power and put the light source as close as possible to your subject. The closer it is, the sharper the falloff.

After you get that squared away (pun?) it's just a matter of adjusting your flash power for the proper exposure.
The Inverse Square Law is all about distance, not flash power settings.
Does it all make sense now?

Check out this video from Mark Wallace of AdoramaTV for a walk-through:

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The Inverse Square Law For Dummies and a Photography Rule of Thumb

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I loved physics class in high school. In college, I earned minors in mathematics and engineering. But I was left scratching my head when I first read about how the Inverse Square Law was explained for flash photography. This explanation, graph, and calculator will make it much easier than many other explanations out there.

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If you aim to obtain an improved focus, then a follow-focus system should probably be your first choice. As for wireless follow focus units, they are more advanced than the traditional methods of shooting. Check out these units we found for you. 1.

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How to use lens simulator

You can simulate images shot with various combinations of lenses, ranging from wide-angle to telephoto, and cameras, in different formats. Image varies with the value of the focal length.
Select any combination you are interested in.

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How to use lens simulator You can simulate images shot with various combinations of lenses, ranging from wide-angle to telephoto, and cameras, in different formats. Image varies with the value of the focal length. Select any combination you are interested in.

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Vivian Maier is the nanny and American street photographer who posthumously became internationally famous after a 26-year-old real estate agent bought a box of 30,000 of her negatives at an estate sale for $400 in 2007. In addition to her captivating black-and-white photos, Maier also captured color images, some of which are being published in a book for the first time ever.

Vivian Maier: The Color Work is a new 240-page hardcover book containing over 150 of Maier's color photographs. It's the "first definitive monograph of color photographs by American street photographer Vivian Maier."

The photos in the book were drawn from the roughly 40,000 Ektachrome color slides found among the tens of thousands of negatives, film rolls, and prints that the self-taught photographer quietly left behind after her death in the late 2000s. They span about 30 years of her life from the 1970s to the 1990s and were shot in New York and Chicago using a 35mm camera.

And while her black-and-white photos of American life decades ago have been widely published, her color images have received far less publicity.

Maier shied away from the public eye and stashed her lifetime body of work in storage facilities prior to the trove being discovered. And with how prolific her photography was, it's likely that many of the photos being published now went unseen by the photographer herself.

"It's not certain that she ever opened the boxes and saw the results herself," book curator Colin Westerbeck writes in the intro.

Vivian Maier: The Color Work is available now for $60 from Amazon and other book retailers.

You can also find more of Vivian Maier's work on her "official" website.

(via HarperCollins via Colossal)

Update on 11/19/18: These photos will be on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery through January 5, 2019.
Image credits: Photographs from Vivian Maier: The Color Work, by Colin Westerbeck. Copyright © 2018. Images reproduced here with permission from Harper Design, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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Vivian Maier is the nanny and American street photographer who posthumously became internationally famous after a 26-year-old real estate agent bought a box of 30,000 of her negatives at an estate sale for $400 in 2007. In addition to her captivating black-and-white photos, Maier also captured color images, some of which are being published in a book for the first time ever.

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HOW TO EDIT LIKE BRANDON WOELFEL | LIGHTROOM COLOURGRADE TUTORIAL

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The Secret Code to PERFECT SKIN TONES in Photoshop

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The Secret Code to PERFECT SKIN TONES in Photoshop

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The Secret Code to PERFECT SKIN TONES in Photoshop