High Speed Flash Sync explained... With stop-motion animation!

A few years ago, the Strobist movement went crazy, and that was when a lot of people discovered high-speed flash sync for the first time. To those of us who are used to seeing a ‘sync speed’ of a maximum of 1/60 on a camera, high-speed syncing was absolutely magical… But have you ever stopped to think how the flash manufacturers tackled that challenge? Read on to find out…

In the world of photography, high flash synchronisation is one of the most geeky things you can imagine, but it’s actually sort of hard to explain. A few years ago, I found myself explaining it to a friend of mine with some pieces of paper. It turns out that that was actually a pretty good way of explaining things, so I turned it into a stop-motion video to help explain. Take a look, and memorise it; knowing how this stuff really works is a fantastic way to impress your friends in the pub!

This article was originally created for Gizmodo UK… They did publish the article, but then never used the video! Scoundrels. But now you get to enjoy it, so that’s lovely.

Haje

Literally NO EXPENSES SPARED in this awesome production for :D https://t.co/5VipONeU0w
Riccardo Maria Mantero

ace!
GS_790

Isn’t that fun? So your shutter(s) moves at a constant speed. The length of exposure is actually a question of timing. How long does the camera waits to send the second shutter in motion.

Just a fun little tidbit hold in your back pocket for drunken bar arguments about the pitiful sync speeds these so called professional DSLR’s give you.
Brent Busch

Shutters should have been shown traveling vertically, not horizontally.