Advice on speedlighting please_Drums

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cargo

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Gary
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Hello.
My Daughter wants to take a photo of herself playing the drums. We have a log cabin with the kit in so not got lots of room and not very high.
The idea she has in her head is for a image which is shadowy as in a stage environment and showing motion blur. She had a try last night but was not getting the results she was after. It seems that to capture the blur you need to take the image with no flash we were using a 24x24 soft box with grid.
We just couldn't get both which I am assuming that is correct as the flash freezes the sticks no matter how long the shutter.
Can anybody offer any lighting info that could achieve the blur at the same time give us some nice shadows.
I have a 580 ex and a youngo flash. lights stands x2 plus soft boxes for the flashes "small"
 
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Shadowy... Put the light source (softbox in this case, but in a small space the light could end up being too soft and you could end up ditching it) well off to one side, or even slightly back as well.

Blur... With the camera on manual, experiment to find out what the aperture is going to be, and set that. Then (camera on tripod of course) find out the shutter speed needed to get a reasonably exposed image WITHOUT the flash, say 1/2 second. Then set the shutter to half that (1/4) and take the shot with the flash.

You'll end up with an underlying sharp image from the flash and blur from the ambient.
 
Thanks Gary. Will try this as per your advice. It did become apparent that the blur is captured with the ambiant but everytime we added the flash we just could not get any blur on the sticks.

Gaz
 
Possibly because you didn't have the camera set to manual, and the camera was setting the shutter speed to suit the flash.

That's just a guess, I don't use Canon
 
Try the flash guns on full power in manual - the effective flash duration is unclipped at full power and much longer than at lower settings. If she's drumming fast, you'll get some movement blur from the flash that way.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Possibly because you didn't have the camera set to manual, and the camera was setting the shutter speed to suit the flash.

That's just a guess, I don't use Canon
Click to expand...
No Gary, I was in manual and went down to 1 sec exposure on rear curtain too. Still the flash froze the sticks. If I used Av with widest ap which is 4.5 (kit lens) and highest iso 1600 (Canon 450d) and let camera set shutter 1/13th we captured stick blur but the lighting was just from overhead tungstun light fitings so we had no control over shadows and the like.

HoppyUK said:
Try the flash guns on full power in manual - the effective flash duration is unclipped at full power and much longer than at lower settings. If she's drumming fast, you'll get some movement blur from the flash that way.
Click to expand...
Hello there. Well I don't quite get the concept there but once we give it a go I am sure it will become clear :-)

Gaz
 
cargo said:
No Gary, I was in manual and went down to 1 sec exposure on rear curtain too. Still the flash froze the sticks. If I used Av with widest ap which is 4.5 (kit lens) and highest iso 1600 (Canon 450d) and let camera set shutter 1/13th we captured stick blur but the lighting was just from overhead tungstun light fitings so we had no control over shadows and the like.


Hello there. Well I don't quite get the concept there but once we give it a go I am sure it will become clear :-)

Gaz
Click to expand...

Concept is simple. 580EX has a full power t.5 flash duration of 1/833secs according to Canon and at a rough guess I'd say that translates to an effective shutter speed of maybe 1/400sec in terms of motion blur. That will show at least a bit of blurring of a drummer and will be most visible against a dark background. It will be enough to show the sticks are moving, but not if you want big swirly motion blurs - need ambient light for that.

Hot-shoe guns moderate the power output by cutting the flash duration, and it's roughly cut in half for every stop of power reduction. Basically it means that when you get down to quarter power and lower, flash duration will freeze most things - as short as about 1/40,000sec at 1/128th power minimum output.
 
HoppyUK said:
Concept is simple. 580EX has a full power t.5 flash duration of 1/833secs according to Canon and at a rough guess I'd say that translates to an effective shutter speed of maybe 1/400sec in terms of motion blur. That will show at least a bit of blurring of a drummer and will be most visible against a dark background. It will be enough to show the sticks are moving, but not if you want big swirly motion blurs - need ambient light for that.

Hot-shoe guns moderate the power output by cutting the flash duration, and it's roughly cut in half for every stop of power reduction. Basically it means that when you get down to quarter power and lower, flash duration will freeze most things - as short as about 1/40,000sec at 1/128th power minimum output.
Click to expand...
Thank makes more sence now.
Will have a try asap.
Gaz
 
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