Ken D Photography wrote:
Almost any flash/strobe with adjustable settings will stop action no matter what the shutter speed is.

This was done at 1/200, f/8 and ISO 400, but the speedlight  was set at 1/4 power to decrease the duration of the flash.



And, the flash was a $70 Yonguo YN560 shot through a shoot through umbrella.

hi! I get a curtain over 1/160, plus it is for indoor use (no ambient light). The adjustable settings they have are the flashes power- is that what you mean? When i rase the ISO so much I get noise..

Michael Lohr  wrote:
Many Professionals use Profoto.

It is difficult to answer your question if you can mix the different stobes.

The answer is depending how you use them.

A faster strobe has two advantages. A faster recycle time, and a faster flash duration.

The rule is you can only shoot as fast as your slowest pack. If they are at full power then they will not be able to keep up.

Flash duration is also based on how much power you are using. On a single head the flash duration will be much shorter when shooting at F/4 vs say F/16.

So if the old background lights are powered way down in relation to the new pack, you may be able to have an adequate flash duration.

Hi and thank you for answering!
I will try lowering the flashes and shoot around f/4, but I m afraid by raising the ISO i ll get noise plus my Canon 18-135 IS gives me a bit of blur in these numbers which is what I try to avoid..
I have three 250W, should i turn the volume down to 1/3?

MaL kap wrote:

hi! I get a curtain over 1/160, plus it is for indoor use (no ambient light). The adjustable settings they have are the flashes power- is that what you mean? When i rase the ISO so much I get noise..

Flash duration is independant to shutter speed.
Slow Flash duration may be closer to 1/30 of a second. Fast Flash duration may be 1/1000 of a second. (or even more)

Flash duration in a given pack can vary wildly. The more power you use the slower the Flash duration. Most of the time this never matters. If you have a subject with rapid movement, then it will matter what type of pack you are using and it's power setting.

Ken D Photography wrote:
Almost any flash/strobe with adjustable settings will stop action no matter what the shutter speed is.

This was done at 1/200, f/8 and ISO 400, but the speedlight  was set at 1/4 power to decrease the duration of the flash.



And, the flash was a $70 Yonguo YN560 shot through a shoot through umbrella.

Speed lights differ in flash duration from studio strobes. A studio strobe with say 1/900 flash duration will probably not completely freeze the action, especially if the model is moving quickly. What's your budget?

Michael Lohr  wrote:

Flash duration is independant to shutter speed.
Slow Flash duration may be closer to 1/30 of a second. Fast Flash duration may be 1/1000 of a second. (or even more)

Flash duration in a given pack can vary wildly. The more power you use the slower the Flash duration. Most of the time this never matters. If you have a subject with rapid movement, then it will matter what type of pack you are using and it's power setting.

I 'm sorry- what do you mean by what 'type of pack'? Do you mean brand?

Dwight Smalls wrote:
http://www.paulcbuff.com/e640.php

Hi there! Thank you for your comment!
I saw these in this very interesting article

http://strobist.blogspot.gr/2010/06/ris … nding.html


but I m a little sceptic since they are no name.. Or aren't they?

MaL kap wrote:

Hi there! Thank you for your comment!
I saw these in this very interesting article

http://strobist.blogspot.gr/2010/06/ris … nding.html


but I m a little sceptic since they are no name.. Or aren't they?

They are popular here in the US, I have several that I use in my studio.

Dwight Smalls wrote:
Speed lights differ in flash duration from studio strobes. A studio strobe with say 1/900 flash duration will probably not completely freeze the action, especially if the model is moving quickly. What's your budget?

When you say 1/900 flash duration- do they give these specifications? You cannot measure by yourself- can you? My budget could be around 1500e. But I need threestrobes  for fill light and background , If I could use one expensive strobe and two of the cheap ones I already have- this could make things easier.

Also, can I do anything so that I do not get a curtain above 1/160. What is the reason for that?

Ken D Photography wrote:

They are popular here in the US, I have several that I use in my studio.

ok! have you tried them with models jumping? Are you completely satisfied and how many do you use for full body shots?

MaL kap wrote:
ok! have you tried them with models jumping? Are you completely satisfied and how many do you use for full body shots?

Never tried one with a model jumping, but I have used them to freeze hair being blown. As for a full body shot, it would depend on the modifier you use, a very large soft box would work for a full body shot, but that would be at a higher power setting, I would probably use two just to make sure of even lighting if the subject was jumping.
I'm very satisfied with their performance, I use one AB1600 and two AB800's in my studio, I've had them for several years. I'm also using them on location now, well the two  800's anyway, now that I've purchased the battery pack.

scubie wrote:
Einstiens are the way to go, flash duration as short as 1/13,000sec I recently got one and used for jumping shoot. They will combine with standard studio flash as background light.
Shot with OM-D EM-5 at 9fps, the einstiens recycle that fast !!

   

This is great! Maybe I can order it from a site within europe? Are your Standard flashes of the same brand or different? Your remote trigger is it from einsteins or from the other flashes?

Sam Cantu wrote:
The Paul C Buff alien bees actually shoot so slow that you can use higher shutter speeds.  Here in Texas in the summer and middle of the day ive shot at 1/800th at 2.8 using the pocket wizard tt5 triggers is the key. both curtains will move pass across the sensor before the strobe has finished firing.  forget about blue skies though. 
If you just want a fast strobe then use the Einsteins from the same company.  those are as fast as it gets, accept maybe for the new prophotos that just came out but these are less then $500 each. cheaper then my Nikon speedlight camera mounted flashes.

so, I should get a trigger as well? - the one you mentioned? If I get one with a whole body soft box do you think it will be enough for full body shots?

MaL kap wrote:
This is great! Maybe I can order it from a site within europe? Are your Standard flashes of the same brand or different? Your remote trigger is it from einsteins or from the other flashes?

Hi, the other flashes for background are mixture of cheap studio flashes and I use cheap youngnuo  radio trigger  On the Einstien 640 flash I use their 22inc beauty dish, give full body coverage.
I bought flash from Paul c Buff in england but think they have distributer in Europe.
http://www.paulcbuff.eu.com/

  Doug

this was shot at 9fps as she did a back flip!

at 1/10,00sec

MaL kap wrote:

I 'm sorry- what do you mean by what 'type of pack'? Do you mean brand?

Actually Both.

Brand. The best brands will usually be the fastest. The most expensive within the Brand will also usually be faster. Ex  Profoto 8A packs are much faster in flash duration (and recycle time) then the Accutes.

Type. Different type of Flash can be faster. To stop a speeding bullet one of my professors used large number of small flashes at 1/16th power to freeze the motion. There are now cameras and flash that can do that.

Here is a link to a Camera that takes one trillion frames a second
http://kottke.org/12/08/extreme-slow-motion-photography

MKPhoto wrote:
1/640 sec shutter speed freezes every dance move I've seen and shot so far, so any flash thingy at 1/900 sec (which mean any flash pretty much) should be good enough IMO. Figure skater in triple jump, hand movement of a boxer or karate practitioner, hockey slapshot etc might be a bit faster, but 1/900 should freeze them, unless you go for  closeups of the  moving body part. Hand in baseball pitch might be the fastest of them all.

Most Power Packs sync at 1/250th or less.
Outside I would never shoot less than 1/2000th of a second for the above subjects.

MaL kap wrote:
...strobes for freezing action in the studio (for models full body)...

Lots and lots of good information shared in this thread... many thanks to all who contributed... greatly appreciate

Here's PB's Alien Bees at approximately 1/1100 of a second...
no problem catching a dancer at the peak of their moment...



albeit for higher velocities i.e. a hair toss they simply aren't quite up to razor sharpness...
Like most all assignments, knowing how to work within the limits of your equipment has considerable worth and value...



All the best on your journey MaL kap

Michael Lohr  wrote:
Most Power Packs sync at 1/250th or less.
Outside I would never shoot less than 1/2000th of a second for the above subjects.

you are confusing sync speed and flash duration.

also, the limiting factor for sync speed is first the camera. In this instance the OP says they get banding over 1/160 sec.  Unless they have changed cameras recently, it syncs at 1/200 sec max.  This suggests, but does not guarantee, that changing triggers "might" give them 1/200th. I wouldn't bet on it.  So 1/160 is going to be the fastest that camera will sync with studio strobes.

Flash duration is a whole different animal. it is the time the flash is 'burning'.  In a studio you can set the exposure such that 1/160 isn't letting in significant ambient.  So the ability to freeze motion is dependent on the flash time.  This time is measure in "t" times - you commonly see t.5 and sometimes t.1
t.5 is how long the flash is at or above 50% intensity. That measure is pretty standard in the industry but could be useless as a measure for freezing motion.  50% of full power is a stop down, hardly black.  So if a strobe is putting out 50% of its power still at 1/500th of a second you could see motion blur.  The t.1 time (rare but getting more popular) measures the time to drop to 10% output.  A t.1 time of 1/500 should freeze most things.

MKPhoto wrote:
1/640 sec shutter speed freezes every dance move I've seen and shot so far, so any flash thingy at 1/900 sec (which mean any flash pretty much) should be good enough IMO. Figure skater in triple jump, hand movement of a boxer or karate practitioner, hockey slapshot etc might be a bit faster, but 1/900 should freeze them, unless you go for  closeups of the  moving body part. Hand in baseball pitch might be the fastest of them all.

I m sorry I 'm not getting it. With the flashes I have,  I get a curtain over 1/160, what does the number 1/900 represent? I do not know the speed of my strobes..

scubie wrote:

Hi, the other flashes for background are mixture of cheap studio flashes and I use cheap youngnuo  radio trigger  On the Einstien 640 flash I use their 22inc beauty dish, give full body coverage.
I bought flash from Paul c Buff in england but think they have distributer in Europe.
http://www.paulcbuff.eu.com/

  Doug

this was shot at 9fps as she did a back flip!

Thank you that's great!

at 1/10,00sec

ArtistryImage wrote:
Lots and lots of good information shared in this thread... many thanks to all who contributed... greatly appreciate

Here's PB's Alien Bees at approximately 1/1100 of a second...
no problem catching a dancer at the peak of their moment...



albeit for higher velocities i.e. a hair toss they simply aren't quite up to razor sharpness...
Like most all assignments, knowing how to work within the limits of your equipment has considerable worth and value...



All the best on your journey MaL kap

Thank you! 1/1100 ,- which measurement is it? sorry 
They are pretty sharp!

AVD AlphaDuctions wrote:
you are confusing sync speed and flash duration.

also, the limiting factor for sync speed is first the camera. In this instance the OP says they get banding over 1/160 sec.  Unless they have changed cameras recently, it syncs at 1/200 sec max.  This suggests, but does not guarantee, that changing triggers "might" give them 1/200th. I wouldn't bet on it.  So 1/160 is going to be the fastest that camera will sync with studio strobes.

Flash duration is a whole different animal. it is the time the flash is 'burning'.  In a studio you can set the exposure such that 1/160 isn't letting in significant ambient.  So the ability to freeze motion is dependent on the flash time.  This time is measure in "t" times - you commonly see t.5 and sometimes t.1
t.5 is how long the flash is at or above 50% intensity. That measure is pretty standard in the industry but could be useless as a measure for freezing motion.  50% of full power is a stop down, hardly black.  So if a strobe is putting out 50% of its power still at 1/500th of a second you could see motion blur.  The t.1 time (rare but getting more popular) measures the time to drop to 10% output.  A t.1 time of 1/500 should freeze most things.

Very Useful advice. Thank you so much! so , before I get a new flash (eg Einstein) I ll have to check that t1 is at least 1/500? Am i getting it right?

MaL kap wrote:
Thank you! 1/1100 ,- which measurement is it? sorry 
They are pretty sharp!

The 1/1100 is a fraction of a second as claimed by the vendor for this product at full power...  keep in mind that for many products flash duration is a function of there power setting... this duration can vary widely not only by power setting but also depending on vendor...

The shutter speed on both images (without checking) was probably 1/200 a second although my particular device will yield a full frame up to 1/320 a second, it's highest sync speed and verified through testing    That is without vendor specific illumination devices a.k.a. speedlights.  If you opt for a speedlight that has the ability to work in a high speed sync (HSS) mode then shutter speeds of 1/8000 are indeed possible (most current DSLRs i.e. Canon, Nikon etc. can go up to 1/8000th second.)

Unfortunately there are some downsides to HSS mode, you will lose some light output since the speedlite can’t put out full power when trying to achieve thousands of short bursts required for this type of scenario.  Another is speedlights do not have modeling lights, nor do they have the enough power to preform at the same level as standard studio packs or monolights... there are always tradeoffs, thus knowing the limits of your equipment is essential for commercial work...  experience is a brutal teacher...

again all the best on your journey MaL kap

photoimager wrote:
The fastest studio flash unit is the Hensel Speedmax and it also has a strobe mode, something most studio flash units do not have:
- down to 1/66 000 ( 1/66,000 for those on the other side of the pond )
http://www.hensel.eu/en/products/compac … d-max.html
The fastest budget studio flash unit is probably the Einstein.

The cheapest route to short flash durations are speedlights / hotshoe flashes at low power.

So , if I get the Einstein 6.. what softbox shouldI get for a full body shot? big octagon or 200mm softbox? Do they affect freezing motion?

MaL kap wrote:

So , if I get the Einstein 6.. what softbox shouldI get for a full body shot? big octagon or 200mm softbox? Do they affect freezing motion?

a softbox just reduces a bit of the light intensity (varies with the units). so it could change f8 to f5.6 or something like that.  won't change the flash duration. what shape you get depends on your preferences.  None of us can see your vision for the shoot.

AVD AlphaDuctions wrote:

a softbox just reduces a bit of the light intensity (varies with the units). so it could change f8 to f5.6 or something like that.  won't change the flash duration. what shape you get depends on your preferences.  None of us can see your vision for the shoot.

The pic I am aiming for would be something like that.
Well lit and frozen action.. Today Im getting my 6D and then i have to get only one einstein because it is double the price from the UK site, and I have to get one softbox that can light the whole body- girls are around 1.80..

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=FASHION+ … x=41&ty=54


If i have an octabox in an angle facing downwards on her head, would the light be evenly distributed? I guess her head would be lit more?

MaL kap wrote:
Hi there,
I need to buy fast strobes for freezing action in the studio (for models full body), any suggestions? What characteristics should I look for?
I already have a set of slow- cheap ones also.. If i change the trigger would it make them any faster? Can i improve them or should I get new ones?
If I get one new one- will I be able to combine it with the old ones since I need them for fill and background lighting, and use them with the same trigger?

Thanks!

What strobes do you currently have, and what power level are they at?  It's possible you could get the results you want by simply changing how you are using your existing equipment.


Surprisingly, most variable power studio strobes have longer flash durations at lower power levels.    Lower power strobes tend to have shorter flash durations, but high power strobes set to low power have longer flash durations.



There are exceptions,  small hot-shoe flashes, and a handful of studio strobes (like the Einstein) have shorter durations at lower power.



If you want to stop action, and you already have typical studio strobes, then pick your lowest power strobes, and use them at full power.

If you are buying strobes, then get something like the Einstein, which is designed for short flash duration.


Darken the ambient studio lighting, and set your shutter speed to 1/150.


If your action is merely a model walking, then almost any strobe at full power should be able to stop it.   You only need to resort to Einsteins (or similar) for stopping fast movements.

Michael Fryd wrote:
What strobes do you currently have, and what power level are they at?  It's possible you could get the results you want by simply changing how you are using your existing equipment.


Surprisingly, most variable power studio strobes have longer flash durations at lower power levels.    Lower power strobes tend to have shorter flash durations, but high power strobes set to low power have longer flash durations.



There are exceptions,  small hot-shoe flashes, and a handful of studio strobes (like the Einstein) have shorter durations at lower power.



If you want to stop action, and you already have typical studio strobes, then pick your lowest power strobes, and use them at full power.

If you are buying strobes, then get something like the Einstein, which is designed for short flash duration.


Darken the ambient studio lighting, and set your shutter speed to 1/150.


If your action is merely a model walking, then almost any strobe at full power should be able to stop it.   You only need to resort to Einsteins (or similar) for stopping fast movements.

I have this kit which is a cheap one, I do not know how fast it is, but I think it is one of the things that causes blurred pictures even on a tripod.
So do you think I shoud try lowering the power or raising it?? I think lower power will give shorter duration?..

I want the einsteins for Models Jumping..

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=newer+75 … oft:el:IE-

MaL kap wrote:

I have this kit which is a cheap one, I do not know how fast it is, but I think it is one of the things that causes blurred pictures even on a tripod.
So do you think I shoud try lowering the power or raising it?? I think lower power will give shorter duration?..

I want the einsteins for Models Jumping..

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=newer+75 … oft:el:IE-

your link does not work so we are unable to comment accurately but (guessing) you got a kit with 3 250w/s strobes?  Michael is suggesting lowering the power, so (typically) turn it down fully. that is 3 stops down from full.   if it is too dark you can raise the ISO a bit or use more than one strobe.  I have several of the cheap strobes from various brands and have no trouble capturing movement such as jumps so I am curious now about what the problem might be.