Technique Tuesday: My Cheatin’ Flash – Or How To Shoot Flash Photography Faster Than The Native Sync Speed

Good Morning Everybody,

We kicked off leg 5 of our Captured By The Light 2010 tour [link] with an enthusiastic crowd of over 200 strong in Washington D.C. last night. Everyone sure seemed like they had a good time.

This morning we head over to Philadelphia and are looking forward to seeing our good friends in that part of the country. Then it’s on to Newark and Boston for the rest of the week. 

I’ve mentioned that we drive to most of our cities with our Grand Caravan “loaded to the gills” as they say.  When we are hitting the biggest cities of the tour like we are this week, our mini van is loaded up and pretty packed with our gear, tour handbooks, vendor literature, and tour supplies which were all shipped in for the week.  The vehicle drives more like a boat than a car till we get some of the supplies unloaded in the upcoming cities ;~) Anyway, looking forward to the week and can’t wait to make a few new friends along the way!

My Cheatin’ Flash – Or How To Shoot Flash Photography Faster Than The Native Sync Speed

I am re-running this tutorial today because I think it is such a cool technique and has some great day to day applications especially for wedding photographers.  It’s also a little peek at what I discuss during our CBTL tour.

Back in the film days I used to shoot with a Hasselblad 500 CM [link] medium format camera.  I loved the camera – it was the de facto wedding camera for most wedding photographers.

One feature that most of us loved was the fact that it would sync up to 1/500 second with our strobes.  That was really important when shooting outdoors in bright sunlight – the higher flash sync speed made for easier control of the ambient light when trying to create a dramatic image for our clients.

With today’s digital cameras we are not so lucky.  Most only sync up to 1/250 second and some even slower than that.  That’s why I developed my “Cheatin’ Flash” technique.  It gets me pretty close to the faster shutter speeds I’d grown accustomed to with my Hasselblad. Hit the PLAY button below and see how I get by with the higher shutter speeds on today’s digital cameras.  Enjoy the show!

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today. We’ll be back in town next week for my Master Class and I’ll try for a fresh Technique Tuesday. We are pulling out for Philly in just a few minutes so how about I see  you tonight in the the City of Brotherly Love or tomorrow morning for another episode of The One That Got Away.

See ya’ soon,  David