Hello!

Please bear with my question... In This Photo, Mr Strobist himself says "300/2.8 will stop at 1/250th better than a 400/2.8"

My question then, how does this sort of thing apply to our normal exposure triangle? All things being equal, I move the aperture up and shutter speed down and I've compensated 1 stop with another. (yes I'm being overly simplistic here, I am more referring to the light levels than how the final photo will look).

What needs to be considered then when adding in a flash? Add in a flash that syncs at 1/250 and then what? Is there a way to add in the flash to the equation? Any resources you can recomend?

Thanks!

Well... English is not my first language but IMHO the quote is not about exposure... 1/250 is the sync speed so the camera will record more motion blur from a longer lens than from a shorter one... ideally you need to shoot at least at 1/focal length seconds in order to avoid motion blur... When the sync speed is 1/250 is obviously that the shorter lens acts better...

Don't take my words as Scripture... English plays with me sometimes

Your English is better than my Romanian


If I'm understanding you, and again I'm using the most basic concept on this...

Sync is 1/250, so at 300mm you would "ideally" use a shutter speed of 1/300, and at 400mm of 1/400, so in THIS case 300 being closer to 250.

I think I'm getting it..

mulțumesc!

Correct! That's why he counts five compromises... not just the usual three from the exposure triangle. Bringing a flash in the equation when shooting with long lenses is tricky. (well, for me flash is always tricky )

Glad to help someone who know to properly spell "mulțumesc"!

It's simply that motion blur will show up more with a longer lens than with a wider lens. More pixels are devoted to the blurry area in a close-up photo than in a wider one. That's why wide-angle landscape shots appear to be sharper than closeups. The flash does not change the "stopping power" from one lens to another.

Steve, I've been meaning to ask you...do you use flash during your night game photography? My squadron football team has been asking me to shoot a game for them, but I know nothing about how you do what you do.

I finally got some strobes and was thinking long throw reflector, but don't want to be blinding or distracting the players during the game. With that being said, I turned down the shoot altogether.

Kevin