WATER DROP SHOTS

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cornish chris

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HELP PLEASE I am trying to do water drop shots and going round the twist at an alarming rate .I am using two flash guns set at 1/64 power off camera one set to master the other set to slave , the problem is I'm getting ghosting around the droplet . As father Christmas is giving me two more flash guns [ yonguo's ] I was wondering would I be better off connecting these together with cables if so how can I do this . Please answer soon while I'm still a bit sane .
 
Thanks Ian for taking the time to answer, and the link , but It's not quite what I'm after . I find a single flash will not freeze the action using 180 macro lens . what I want to know is how do I connect up multiple flashes with cables I am using a High-Viz light trigger for timing my shots with a P.C cable to the first master flash which then sets of a slave flash but I am getting ghosting .
 
I can't remember the flash settings I used but they were quite low. If I remember correctly I shot in manual with the shutter speed set to 1/250 (fastest sync speed) aperture quite high (f/11 I think) then adjusted the two flashes to expose the scene. Then poked a hole in the glove and started shooting! Dunno if this helps, but I don't see the benefit of using cables to connect the flashes. If they work as optical slaves then I'd go with that (that's what I did)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rssmrry/sets/72157628288147349/
 
Thanks Ross but not what I'm asking thanks for taking the time though .
 
Chris, is the question you're asking about how to connect a load of flashes together via cable? Or are you after advice on shooting water droplets?

If its the former - I've no idea! If the latter I can offer what I learnt doing the same thing (incidentally I used 2 flashes too - one triggered wirelessly the other a slave)

Results weren't bad either!

Regards

Neil
 
If you don't mind my asking, what's the advantage of using wires over optical triggering anyway?
 
not sure if there is an advantage Ross but with optical triggering I'm getting a slight double exposure so I thought I would give the cable option a try .
 
rssmrry said:
If you don't mind my asking, what's the advantage of using wires over optical triggering anyway?
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For most applications, there is little to see by way of difference. If you've got a subject moving relatively quickly then the second flash can't start until it's been triggered by the master unit and this extends the total light duration a little.
If both flashes were triggered by an IR trigger (or cable) then they would be simultaneous and the problem wouldn't occur.

Bob
 
Canon Bob said:
For most applications, there is little to see by way of difference. If you've got a subject moving relatively quickly then the second flash can't start until it's been triggered by the master unit and this extends the total light duration a little.
If both flashes were triggered by an IR trigger (or cable) then they would be simultaneous and the problem wouldn't occur.

Bob
Click to expand...

Ah thanks, I'd have thought with the speed of light and the distances we're talking about the time taken to trigger the slave would be negligible - in my case the time would be 1.67ns?
 
rssmrry said:
Ah thanks, I'd have thought with the speed of light and the distances we're talking about the time taken to trigger the slave would be negligible - in my case the time would be 1.67ns?
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p46047435-6.jpg
 
rssmrry said:
Ah thanks, I'd have thought with the speed of light and the distances we're talking about the time taken to trigger the slave would be negligible - in my case the time would be 1.67ns?
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Studio strobes just triggered by virtue of the main unit flash pulse. Speedlites have a few extra tricks in that there is a coded data burst before the flash which tells the slave what's required (even if nothing is required). Add to this a small amount of processing time in the slave's electronic and the speed of light becomes a mute point.

I had similar experiences with water drop shots. Firstly, the lowest power setting produced the clearest drops as the light duration is the shortest with the lowest power. The second issue was using two Speedlites and I found that a dual trigger is cleaner than a master-slave setup.

Bob
 
Canon Bob said:
Studio strobes just triggered by virtue of the main unit flash pulse. Speedlites have a few extra tricks in that there is a coded data burst before the flash which tells the slave what's required (even if nothing is required). Add to this a small amount of processing time in the slave's electronic and the speed of light becomes a mute point.

I had similar experiences with water drop shots. Firstly, the lowest power setting produced the clearest drops as the light duration is the shortest with the lowest power. The second issue was using two Speedlites and I found that a dual trigger is cleaner than a master-slave setup.

Bob
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Ah gotcha now, every day's a school day :bonk:
 
Have you considered that it could be the pre-flash that's causing the ghosting?
 
scottthehat said:
Doesn't say he was in manual.
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He does... kinda.

He said 1/64 power, which implies manual, as any power adjustment in TTL would be specified as flash compensation in +/- EV.

Of course, he COULD be converting flash compensation into a division of full power, but that's not likely, and probably not accurate.

My guess is that since he says one is operating as 'master' that it is doing a pre-flash even if it's not in TTL. Although it could be simply that the second flash takes a while to respond to the optical trigger and that's long enough to cause a double-image.

To cornishchris, have you tried swapping which is the master and which is slave? it might make a difference.

To canon bob, or he could just buy PC<>hotshoe adapters, they're cheap enough - about a fiver each.
 
6461711003_c487f88a1e_z.jpg
NOT A WATER DROP BUT THIS SHOWS THE PROBLEM DART FLIGHT IS BLURRED ALTHOUGH FLASH WAS AT 1/128 POWER . SHOT WITH FLASH IN MANUAL MODE .FOR THIS SHOT I USED A SINGLE FLASH A CANON 550EX
 
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1/128th power. Possibly ambient? (although the blur looks to be before the flash rather than after it....)
 
cornish chris said:
NOT A WATER DROP BUT THIS SHOWS THE PROBLEM DART FLIGHT IS BLURRED ALTHOUGH FLASH WAS AT 1/128 POWER .
Click to expand...

Not blurred per se, there is distinctly 2 ghost images, so it's not just 1 pre-flash that's happening, you actually have at least 3 seperate flashes in that image, and pretty evenly spaced by the looks of it.

The ghost images are pretty relatively unblurred, it's just where all 3 mix together where it looks blurred.
 
A couple of questions about the ballon shot Chris.
Was the shot taken in protrait orientation?
Did you use HSS?

Bob
 
Yes Bob shot in portrait mode and cropped , HSS not employed , shot in the dark and triggered by sound not delayed ,flash set to 1/128 power , exposure adjusted by apperature , camera set to bulb for 3 secs set on cable release .
 
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