Suggestions for a flash?

warden · Jan 29, 2018

Hi all,

The Picasso pic below is borrowed from the internet and shows something similar to what I'd like to achieve. I'm not interested in capturing a subject drawing with a flashlight, but I am interested in the rest, capturing movement over time with (I assume) a longish exposure and multiple flashes.

In my case I would anticipate maybe five seconds of movement with at least that many flashes during the exposure, at a distance of ten feet or so. I'll use a medium format camera with slow film and flash when needed. The flash wouldn't be connected to or controlled by the camera, I'll just hold it to the side and flash away.

I don't own a flash. I'd like to have one that can cycle quickly and (I'm just guessing) wouldn't have to be super powerful considering the intended use. Price, I don't know. $100-200? I don't know what to expect.

I'd appreciate any suggestions you can give. If I've omitted info just let me know.

Thanks!

Renato Tonelli · Jan 29, 2018

Any flash will do and at that price range you should have no trouble finding a good one (Metz, Sunpak, etc.).
Funny you should attach that photo; I believe it was made by Gjon Mili for Life magazine. I took an intro to photography class with him in college - he had us all experiment one day with flash and multiple flash.

AgX · Jan 29, 2018

jawarden said:
I'm not interested in capturing a subject drawing with a flashlight, but I am interested in the rest, capturing movement over time with (I assume) a longish exposure and multiple flashes.

In photoengineering the first is called motography , the second stroboscopy.
Quite contrary techniques, your Picasso example thus is misleading.

M Carter · Jan 29, 2018

AC-powered Monolights tend to recycle quickly (especially on the lower end of their output), and (unlike a lot of on-camera units) they usually list their recycle rates in their specs. I have an old Novatron that will just pop,pop,pop all day. More bonuses with most monolights: easier stand mounting and aiming, ability to use a softbox or reflectors or barndoors of your choosing, and ability to rig up some sort of momentary trigger or use a radio remote to pop them from a distance.

warden · Jan 29, 2018

AgX said:
In photoengineering the first is called motography , the second stroboscopy.
Quite contrary techniques, your Picasso example thus is misleading.

I'm a fan of using the proper terminology, but are those words commonly used? I just used google to search with your terminology and came up with volumes of images and information about motorcycles and surgical procedures. Anyway I'm not interested in Picasso with a flashlight, I'm interested in a single longish exposure with multiple flashes.

warden · Jan 29, 2018

M Carter said:
AC-powered Monolights tend to recycle quickly (especially on the lower end of their output), and (unlike a lot of on-camera units) they usually list their recycle rates in their specs. I have an old Novatron that will just pop,pop,pop all day. More bonuses with most monolights: easier stand mounting and aiming, ability to use a softbox or reflectors or barndoors of your choosing, and ability to rig up some sort of momentary trigger or use a radio remote to pop them from a distance.

I hadn't thought of stand mounting but now you've got me thinking. Thanks for the brand name too, I'll do some digging.

WilmarcoImaging · Jan 29, 2018

Think about having 5 poses that represent the movement you want to capture. No need to hurry the shoot, capture the first pose then have the subject assume the second pose, check lights and focus, then shoot again. Repeat 3 more times. Recycle time drops out of the equation. Be sure to add up to total exposure of all the flashes to avoid hot highlights.

Did you come across a how-to description of how the Picasso image was created? The subject’s poses are nicely balanced and composed. It would be surprising to me if this were done with continuous movement and a pop-pop-pop technique.

I like the Sunpak 622. Power, reliability and affordability. Can be used with a bracket or on a light stand. Need a pc socket on the camera or dedicated shoe accessory to use it. Not sure if there is “plain” (non-dedicated) hot shoe connectivity for this flash. I use the 622 with 35mm and medium format on a regular basis.

warden · Jan 29, 2018

WilmarcoImaging said:
Did you come across a how-to description of how the Picasso image was created? The subject’s poses are nicely balanced and composed. It would be surprising to me if this were done with continuous movement and a pop-pop-pop technique.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look at that Sunpak. I don't know how the Picasso shot was done. It could be pop-pop, but could also be multiple poses on one negative, or even more than one negative I suppose. But it definitely wasn't photoshop.

My preference would be the pop-pop method so I'll make sure the flash can handle that, and if I change to another method later I won't be lacking in the flash department. Another option is simply a camera (maybe 35mm) that can fire off 4fps and I could machine gun it and assemble a composition of multiple negatives in post. But my preference is one long exposure on a medium format negative.

I did a google search for "vintage strobe photography" and came up with a better image illustrating what I'm looking for. So if we can forget Picasso's flashlight and light traces which I'm not interested in... I'm after something more like this, by Harold Edgerton in 1954:

He's the bullet-through-an-apple guy, and I've wondered who did that but never looked in to it. Very cool.

It's interesting (and not a bad thing in my view) that the body overexposes in the middle there. I'm aiming for this motion capture effect, but with fewer 'pops' than we see here.

AgX · Jan 29, 2018

jawarden said:
My preference would be the pop-pop method so I'll make sure the flash can handle that, and if I change to another method later I won't be lacking in the flash department.

Yes, unless you stage movement it could be that fast that you got a problem to find a flash that can handle bursts at short intervalls with sufficient output.
Using a flash with thyristor switch would be the first step, as it does not dump all energy at firing. Furthermore there are stroboscopic triggers and even compact flashes with stroboscopic feature (I'm not speaking of the most fast, focall-plane flashes).
Otherwise you would have to use several plain flashes and make a trigger device. This approach may even be the most economic and effective solution.

MattKing · Jan 29, 2018

Be cautious using standard electronic flashes for multiple pop work intended to mimic the sort of experiments performed by Harold Edgerton. Electronic flashes can get quite hot when they are used this way. I purchased a set of accessories for the Metz 60 CT series flashes that included an accessory head that had suffered damage due to rapid over-use and over-heating - it actually melted the casing!
IIRC, Edgerton used multiple flash heads that were synched to work sequentially.

John Koehrer · Jan 29, 2018

Think about a strobe used by a DJ. There may be some inexpensive "amateur" units for that market it should have adjustable flash rates.

For the Picasso thing just about any thyristor flash unit will do if it has variable power(lower the power, faster recycle).
I've used Vivitar 283 & 285 units for decades, they've been around since the 70's. The 285 has what they call a "vari-power" adjustment
built in the 283 has one as an accessory. Get a newer unit, some of the older ones have a high trigger voltage that can damage electronics in newer cameras.

Like this: Don't think it has a lot of power though.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cannon-Fla...709425?hash=item1a1b5510f1:g:o0wAAOSwgmJX0gpZ

jim10219 · Jan 29, 2018

Get a DJ strobe light. They'll probably be cheaper than a decent flash with the recovery times you’re looking for, and have continuously variable speeds and intensity settings. Also, you won’t have to worry about it burning up the bulb like a camera flash by shooting them in such rapid succession. Look for something like the American DJ Mega Flash DMX 800 from a music store like Sweetwater. Or check out the used market. That thing can do 800 watts worth of light and do it a lot faster than any photography related flash. And you can sync them if you need more than one through a DMX controller. For what you’re wanting to do, a DJ style strobe light is the way to go.

warden · Jan 30, 2018

Thanks a lot for the suggestion of DJ strobe lights, which might be a good and economical solution. I also have a powerful LED flashlight that has a hazard strobe and I don't know why I didn't think of trying that too. I'll do some experimenting and if anything good comes of it I'll share. Thanks to all.

removed account4 · Jan 30, 2018

if i can find it i have a radio shack strobe light i used to use all the time
it has a switch in the back that allows you to speed up or slow down the burst.
if i can find it ...15$ + shipping and its yours.
its probably xenon gas ( like most stroboscopic lights ) so most likely
guessing it will be OK even for color film ( never used it for b/w or color photography )

it has a power cord, and isn't battery operated, so you will have to figure out a way to run it if you don't have
a plug nearby ... these days there are ways to attach a plug to a battery pack with a cigarete lighter adapter ...
who knows maybe this is an option ?

warden · Jan 30, 2018

jnanian said:
if i can find it i have a radio shack strobe light i used to use all the time
it has a switch in the back that allows you to speed up or slow down the burst.
if i can find it ...15$ + shipping and its yours.

That would certainly be worth it to me if only for experimentation purposes. If you find it please pm me. Thanks.

MattKing · Jan 30, 2018

jnanian said:
if i can find it i have a radio shack strobe light i used to use all the time

John:
Check in the place where you have stored your bell-bottom jeans

.

M Carter · Feb 1, 2018

I'm sure you could gel a xenon strobe to whatever color temp you need. But I also imagine you'd need some fairly fast film for many of them. You won't find really solid output until you get to show/nightclub level gear.

warden · Feb 10, 2018

M Carter said:
I'm sure you could gel a xenon strobe to whatever color temp you need. But I also imagine you'd need some fairly fast film for many of them. You won't find really solid output until you get to show/nightclub level gear.

I wonder if that's what I'm seeing here. I did an experiment last night with iso400 film using my kid and this is a typical exposure. This exposure is about 6 seconds at f22, with my son entering from stage right, sitting down, and exiting stage left. Maybe three flashes per second, and as you can see the background is winning the battle. The strobe was six feet away from him.

There are controls for speed but not brightness on the strobe. (Thanks to jnanian for the strobe btw, my kids love it!) The strobe is from the '70s and I don't know how bright it is, so might lighting power be the problem? It throws strong shadows so we tried it flashing directly and also bouncing off a wall. The image you see here is bouncing the flash rather than direct, but aside from softening the light there was little difference.

M Carter · Feb 10, 2018

jawarden said:
I wonder if that's what I'm seeing here. I did an experiment last night with iso400 film using my kid and this is a typical exposure. This exposure is about 6 seconds at f22, with my son entering from stage right, sitting down, and exiting stage left. Maybe three flashes per second, and as you can see the background is winning the battle. The strobe was six feet away from him.

There are controls for speed but not brightness on the strobe. (Thanks to jnanian for the strobe btw, my kids love it!) The strobe is from the '70s and I don't know how bright it is, so might lighting power be the problem? It throws strong shadows so we tried it flashing directly and also bouncing off a wall. The image you see here is bouncing the flash rather than direct, but aside from softening the light there was little difference.

Yep, you've got a fairly typical problem going on - the combined pulses are enough to expose the room itself in total, but each individual flash isn't enough for the moving subject. Probably why so much of this stuff is done with a black background!

warden · Feb 10, 2018

Yeah, I get the feeling that if I had a stronger flash the kid would still be invisible but the room would be brighter, not solving the problem. I may need a black background at a greater distance from the subject. Thanks for the advice!

RalphLambrecht · Feb 11, 2018

jawarden said:
Hi all,

The Picasso pic below is borrowed from the internet and shows something similar to what I'd like to achieve. I'm not interested in capturing a subject drawing with a flashlight, but I am interested in the rest, capturing movement over time with (I assume) a longish exposure and multiple flashes.

In my case I would anticipate maybe five seconds of movement with at least that many flashes during the exposure, at a distance of ten feet or so. I'll use a medium format camera with slow film and flash when needed. The flash wouldn't be connected to or controlled by the camera, I'll just hold it to the side and flash away.

I don't own a flash. I'd like to have one that can cycle quickly and (I'm just guessing) wouldn't have to be super powerful considering the intended use. Price, I don't know. $100-200? I don't know what to expect.

I'd appreciate any suggestions you can give. If I've omitted info just let me know.

Thanks!

check for flashes that allow you to control the frequency of multiple flashes; some Nikon flashes have this capability.

warden · Feb 11, 2018

RalphLambrecht said:
check for flashes that allow you to control the frequency of multiple flashes; some Nikon flashes have this capability.

I had no idea. Thanks Ralph.

WilmarcoImaging · Feb 12, 2018

More exposure on the subject (person) is needed. Not sure of a way to do this that doesn't require more flash power. If you have a flash meter you can get an idea of what f/stop the stobe is producing, and make a judgment on subsequent exposures.

warden · Sep 12, 2018

Hey all, just closing the loop on this old thread with a few examples. Mostly during this project I experimented with letting the performers blur, either through long exposures with a stationary camera or long exposures with me walking through the performance space. There was a black curtain in the rehearsal space and also abundant natural light, so it was fun experimenting with that.

I did end up purchasing a Nikon SB600 which doesn't allow for programmed strobe effects, but is quick enough that I could manually flash five times or so during a long exposure if I wanted. It was fun experimenting, and an enjoyable project. So thanks for all the input!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/Nv2bGf]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/28Uaye3]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/26z93YN]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/JWN8E4]

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jim10219 · Sep 12, 2018

Very nice results! I especially like the third one!

Thanks for posting your results! I always hate it when someone announces and interesting project, and then we never get to see how it went.

Suggestions for a flash?

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