Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

I have Canon 600 flashes but the principles are the same. Most camera shutters will sync with flash at a maximum of 1/200 to 1/250 shutter speed. To do faster shutter speeds requires high speed sync where the flash power is reduced and it is pulsed very rapidly to provide light during the shorter shutter open time.

With my Canon flash I have full power to 1/128th power, seven stops. This is available at the sync speed or lower of your camera body. The duration of the flash itself is roughly 1/1000 second at full power to 1/40,000 second at 1/128 power. You can use this to freeze action or motion too. One way would be to raise your shutter speed to the maximum sync speed, say 1/200. Select an aperture and ISO that will eliminate all ambient light; then the flash will be providing all the light for the exposure. You can play with your settings to get a good exposure and stop action. As others have mentioned if you can get your flash off camera and closer to the subject area this can help as the power is reduced and less light is available for the exposure. Experience and experiment will be your friend. A handheld light meter can be helpful in getting the correct settings but most people don’t have one. And of course multiple flashes can be used if available such as in a studio portrait setting. I expect there are many YouTube videos that can be helpful. I can suggest several videos by Robert Harrington at the B&H event center on YouTube. They are oriented toward portraits but consider yourself as doing bird or animal portraits.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Boris Ekner Loc: From Sweden, living in Guatemala

Flash/Freeze or How to exceed the flash sync speed.

In general the flash sync speed is up to ~1/200 of a second. Any shutter faster than that will produce a black field somewhere in your picture. This has to do with the mechanical design of the shutter itself.

Here is how the shutter works:
https://youtu.be/qUy2yqEgNPw

External flashes has a power adjustment, 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, down to 1/128 as the lowest power. The less the power the faster/shorter is the light duration time. So a flash at 1/1 is longer than a flash at 1/128.

Now, when photographing faster objects the 1/200 of a second sync speed might be too slow.

Here is how you override/trick the sync speed:
1. In manual mode, take a photo at ISO 100, at 1/60-1/100 of a second without flash and make sure the photo is heavily underexposed, i.e. all dark.
2. Set your flash to manual mode at 1/4 power. Take a new photo.

What is happening here?
1. As the shutter opens up nothing is recorded because the setting on the camera are too dark. Nothing is recorded on the sensor until the flash provides its very short burst of light. At 1/4 of a second the burst should be around 1/3000 of a second.
2. As the burst is so short the object will appear as frozen in the picture.

Added to this post is a general chart of the burst time for a third party flash. Your flash might be different.

Search internet for the burst chart of your flash.
https://improvephotography.com/46974/flash-duration-speedlights-long-pop-flash/

Summary
1. Use an external flash in manual mode.
2. Use camera in manual mode.
3. Camera settings for underexposed/dark/blacked out photo.
4. Flash settings for fast light burst.
5. Experiment to learn how different flash power setting affects the photo. Try the rear curtain sync as well.
6. The less the flash power used the faster the recharging of your flash will be. This means that the less the power used the more pictures you can shoot in a burst.
7. As you understand the technique, do not hesitate to increase the aperture one step at the time to brighten up the background.

The dark bird photo was shot at 1/50 of a second, rear curtain flash at 1/4 power, ie ~1/3000 of a second flash.

The bright bird photo was shot at 1/50 of a sec, front curtain flash at 1/4 - meaning the flash fired as the shutter opened. The effect is as seen, the wing movements did not freeze.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Are you setting the camera to manual exposure or one of the auto exposure settings? The reason I ask is that with the flash in ETTL and the camera in any AE mode (Av, Tv or P) the flash will automatically be set to FILL mode (-1.66 stops, approx.), which will allow it to recycle faster. If the camera is set to M and the flash to ETTL, the flash will want to fire FULL and will take longer to recycle.

The external battery pack you're getting will help speed up recycling. If it's one of the Canon CP-E? packs, those hold 8 additional AA batteries, for a total of 12 powering the flash.

I've found that good quality rechargeable AA batteries both recycle faster and give more shots than alkalines.

Is it a 580EX or a 580EX II? The "II" recycles faster.

Are you using a flash extender? Doing so should allow the flash to fire with reduced output and thus recycle faster. Flash extenders are limited to use with 300mm and longer focal lengths on full frame (200mm on APS-C). That's because the Fresnel lens in the extender "concentrates" the flash's output to a narrow area, increasing the illumination by roughly 2 stops.

Dialing in some minus Flash Exposure Compensation also can help (and you'll probably be able to reduce it more if using a flash extender). FEC can be used whenever the flash is in ETTL mode... whether the camera is set to AE (Fill Flash) or M (Full Flash).

All these may help... But there's a limit. Using all the above (except I usually don't dial in much or any additional minus FEC, since the flash is already reducing it in ETTL/AE mode, plus my subjects are often fairly distant), I've found I can get 2 or 3 "pops" with my flash before they need to pause to recycle. I use three older 550EX and three 580EX II. I use Canon CP-E2 and CP-E4 Compact Battery Packs with them. Most of the rechargeable AA batteries I've been using are mid-grade Energizer brand (there may be better).

I don't use (too big and heavy) and don't know if some of the larger rechargeable battery packs such as Quantum would increase the number of shots that could be done in a burst, before the flash needs to pause to recycle The flash can only charge up so much! But compared to a handful of AAs, that type of battery pack can no doubt give more shots per charge and might speed up recycling a little more.

Be a bit careful. The batteries in both the external pack and the flash heat up noticeably after a lot of pops in fairly quick succession. If they get too hot, I think all the Canon flash have built-in heat protection (will shut themselves down for a while, to let the flash tube cool off). I don't know if this also detects overheating of the batteries in the flash and am sure it doesn't in the separate battery pack. I'm shooting sporting events though.... probably a lot more bursts of shots in a shorter period of time than you'll be doing shooting hummingbirds.

Most hummingbirds have iridescent feathers, so in my experience shooting them (limited!), they don't need very powerful flash... it's easy to overdo it.



EDIT: The immediately previous response is pretty much an opposite approach: manual flash and manual camera. You might try it too.... to see if it does better or worse in your particular situation. Rear curtain sync and high speed sync cannot be used at the same time (makes sense if you think about it... they're sort of opposites).

SDigger

I did not know about the high-speed synch. That is interesting. I am glad Canon has figured out how to overcome the low synch speed that comes with focal plane shutters. It seems however that the flash burst lasts longer than the time the shutter is open. What about ditching the flash and switching to an led light source? Not so cool as a flash, but you could probably pump up the lumens and shoot. The extremely short duration shutter ought to stop the action as well as the flash.

Years ago when I had a Nikon D-100, which I believe synched at 1/125 second, I used a remote flash located very near my hummingbird feeder and got fair to mediocre results. The pictures were OK, but the wings were moving so rapidly the ambient exposure prevented a total stop action. With your super fast shutter, you might be able to freeze the movement.

Please post whatever results you get.

Steve

Low Budget Dave

Wait. The rear curtain froze the motion at 1/4 power, but the front curtain did not?

rfmaude41 Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)

If you (just) happen to use a Nikon (or CLS compatible) flash, you can take the shutter speed up to 1/8000. Take a closer look at your camera and flash user manuals.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

I agree with playing around with power settings and the external power source. The flash is a very capable flash.
I use the power settings for other purposes but speed is increased as a consequence.

drklrd Loc: Cincinnati Ohio

New to me too. Thanks.

SDigger

Thanks for the tip! After reading your comment, I began reading the D90 owners manual--something akin to the proverbial stereo instructions, and on page 195 I learned how to synch at speeds up to 1/4000 of a second. Now, if there are any hummingbirds left in central Texas I'll see if I can stop the wing motion.

Once again, thanks. I'm old school and still learning things of which the camera is capable. Back in the day fill flash was easy with a leaf shutter, not so much with a focal plane.

Steve

Rickhstudio Loc: San Antonio, TX

Wow, I didn't expect to generate such a firestorm of responses. Answered my question and then some. Now I just have to experiment to find what is going to work on location. I too, am old school and need to stop treating the digital camera like a medium format film camera. An old dog CAN learn new tricks. Mostly excellent advice, at least from those who understood the question. Since I retired from full time mostly school and studio photography, I have time to learn just what my camera/lens/flash can do and have fun with it again.
Thanks to all. I'll post some when I come back from my next excursion. Off to take BIF at all times of the day (and night.)

Domtom999

Just a note:

The op mentioned he ordered an external battery for his flash, hoping this would help. I’m using a Nikon D850 and a sb910. I have an external battery and recently called them (quantum), to understand exactly what the external battery gives me. The only thing it provides is a faster recharge cycle. Without the external battery (3 seconds), with the battery (1 second). That’s with a 1/1 power setting. It won’t help with his original question.

I did find the discussion of sync speeds and power output settings above to be very informative and should help resolve his original questions.

User ID

" ........ TTL metering and control which
helps to reduce the time the flash is on
thus increasing your cycle time. ...... "

Nothing can reduce the "time the flash is on" in HSS.

Travel time of an FP shutter at speeds above x-synch
is constant ... only its slit width varies as a control of
total accumulated exposure time ... and acoarst the
flash must remain lit for the full duration of that run.

FWIW FYI TWIMC: The run time of the shutter is the
same as the x-synch speed ... IOW, if x = 1/250 then
the elapsed time for the shutter action, at x-synch or
above, is ALWAYS 1/250 sec ... so the HSS burn will
ALWAYS be 1/250 sec., never less.

------------------------------------------------------

If ... *IF* ... the TTL AEF system reduces the power
during the burn, then THAT would improve recycling
speed, but I have no idea if that is actually what TTL
AEF does during HHS.

The manual flash power ratio [percentage] control
and the TTL AEF are one and the same circuit, that
much I do know. So minimizing the percent power
setting can be tested against a constant M-mode
camera setting setting [i.e. 1/2500 sec @ f/8.0]. If
the recycling time improves as the exposures get
darker, then you'll know for sure that the manual
flash power control is worth using to provide more
frames per burst.


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User ID

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That concept is true ONLY in X-synch, but
NOT in effect when using HSS. The flash
burn duration in HSS is AWAYS constant,
and is the same as the x-sych speed. IOW
if X-synch is at 1/200 sec, then the flash
burn duration in HSS is always 1/200 sec.


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