The Camerazzi Community

Using flash on the breaking waves at sunrise

The following post by LeGrange Odendaal explores the experimental use of flash in a situation where most of us would not even recognise the opportunity for a shot, not to mention a great one like this. It lead to some interesting observatioins and question from which we could all learn a great deal: The relevant comments and discussions on the use of the flash in this circumstances are reposted here: To view the entire post and all the comments, follow this link: SPLASH

LeGrange says about his own pic: Waiting for the sun to rise I played around with the flash. Got the timing right on the fourth take. Could hardly see the waves rolling in.
ISO 200, F3.2, S 1/25, Flash

Faan commented:
I like this a lot LeGrange mainly because it is so different. I reckon most photographers wouldn’t even have thought of taking a splash shot when it is still so dark. Instead they would have been getting excited about a “dawn” photo. Well done!

Denis Smit commented:
What makes it really good is that your shutterspeed has allowed background colour into the horison. I always use “2nd curtain” flash mode to achieve this. I find flash photography really challenging and I can understand how many shots you took. Maybe Mike/Pikkie should do us all a tutorial on flash photography. This we can post to site for all to learn from

LeGrange responded:
Thanks Denis. 2nd curtain wouldn’t worked for a wave. you need the flash when the wave break. The flash was spot on from the first shot but it was the timing when the wave hit the concrete.

Mike Harvey commented:
First horision is bit skew(had to through that in)
for this need to work with first curtain as second is freezing after the fact.with a tripod you can setup for correct exposure without flash and then include flash to freeze the part you want.so even at 2 sec you can use flash.

give me something you would like to know in regards flash and let me see what i can put together.

Denis Smit asked:
Mike should we shoot in aperture priority or shutter priority? If Av then shutter closes down when you pop flash and the image get blown? My Canon will only allow 2nd curtain if synch speed is less than 1/60th. What synch speeds to use under different circumstances. Flash lock exposure tips..etc.etc. Your flash work flow..

Mike’s Guidelines:
Flash under these conditions.
I would work in manual – this way i control all settings so using AV or TV etc will not give the results I would want as the camera has some control.

I would start with my favorite setting F8 and iso 100 and start with shutter around 1/60
set to trigger flash on rear curtain
and try to sync to when wave is right.

As the flash duration is rather short, anything from 1/8000 to 1/2000 timing the shot is the hard part.
if I find the shot is underexposed even at full power I would then up the iso to 200 or use the other method I sometimes use: take a shot no flash and see what I get with available light – this way i know what the flash will “add” to the shot.

I expose for correct ambient light to the level I want,then by adding flash i freeze the part i want.
this is more or less what you do to get the light trails of moving cars but the car is frozen at the point you want. You can do this with the flash off camera and trigger by hand at the right time if you use a long enough time.

I have even done this with two flashes in one shot to get some weird results. Of course you would have to use a high f number like f22 and iso of 100 to have enough time to get this all done.
if you still confused by what i said let me know and i will try and use a different way to explain.