Hello guys,
I'm a novice to flash. I know what you'll be saying: rtfm (read the f****** manual). I did.
I want to photograph falling waterdrops, so I bought a sb 600 yesterday. No need for the older DX flashes, as I will need the I-ttl in the future when I upgrade my camera body.
I played around a bit yesterday, but my images seem blurred. What should be my camera settings to freeze the motion of the water splash? Should I use manual mode or shutter priority on the camera. I suppose I need the fastest flash speed as possible, but I can't read the the flash duration of the sb 600. Or am I wrong assuming it is the flash duration that will freeze the motion?
If you're using the flash to freeze the motion it doesn't really matter what the shutter speed is up to your sync speed cos it's the flash doing the freezing. But bear in mind that if your scene is well lit anyway from ambient light then any "ambient light motion" will be captured too - thus your your frozen flash image will be buried underneath the blurred ambient image.
Another way of looking at it is if you're in a dark room then the flash will be the only source of illumination and any motion will be frozen. As you increase ambient light you'll get a progressively more blurred pic.
So counteract high ambient light by stopping down or increasing shutter speed to underexpose it but keep the flash on normal exposure (iTTL should take care of that). There are various combinations you can try but a starting point would be:
Flash on unadjusted iTTL
Camera in manual set to underexpose the scene by 2 stops
HTH
