A trick that Al taught me

[payasam]

This trick is simple and elegant. If a slower shutter speed is used with flash than the fastest possible, more areas of the image can come up which are affected by ambient light. Among other things, this serves to prevent white-mask faces against dark backgrounds.

Exposure of the principal subject is determined by the intensity and duration of the flash, while that of the rest of the image is determined by aperture, shutter speed and ambient light.

The shutter speed should not be so slow as to show up image movement, specially doubling of the image of the main subject owing to image or camera movement. Goes without saying that the brightness of the ambient light is critical.

Al Kaplan can be said to have taught me this trick: because although I had known it decades earlier, I had forgotten it and had come habitually to use only the fastest sync. speed for flash work.

 

[user237428934]

The shutter speed should not be so slow as to show up image movement, specially doubling of the image of the main subject owing to image or camera movement. Goes without saying that the brightness of the ambient light is critical.

If the ambient light is behind your main subject and the flash is the only light source for your main subject then your main subject is sharp even when you have exposure of lets say 1s.

Afik works only well when your camera/flash supports advanced TTL.

 

[robklurfield]

nice trick. now all I need is a flash. thanks, Mukul.

 

[Andy Kibber]

I find 1/15 or 1/30 to be the sweet spot for flash when it's going to be your primary light source. Slow enough to get some ambient light, but not lots of crazy light trails and blurriness.

 

[payasam]

Tom, what you say of the scenario you describe is correct.

Think about it, please. A film Leica and a manual flash will do it.

 

[nikon_sam]

I do this all the time...you'd be surprised just how slow you can go and get sharp images...
As long as your subject isn't moving too fast you can go down to 1/4 sec...
My Nikon F5 and F4 can sync up to 1/250 (F5 1/300 max) but I rarely do it...
Going with the slower speeds does allow the ambient light to reach your film and balance out the whole picture...
I dislike using flash but I have no choice using 160 film indoors and outdoors at night...I have had to experiment and came up with Slower Sync speeds...
I was also playing with the "Rear Curtain Sync" on my SB-25 flash...in order to get good results I had to slow the shutter down below 1/10 sec to get the movement in the image that I was looking for...unless you're shooting race cars at 200 MPH...

 

[degruyl]

For the record, I have double shot on the same piece of film when my flash did not fire for one reason or another. It is only noticeable around the light sources.

This is a very useful technique.

Another good piece of information: flash intensity is all that matters. If you use automatic mode, all you have to do is make sure the aperture is set properly for the flash, and that the shutter is below the required sync speed.

 

[user237428934]

Tom, what you say of the scenario you describe is correct.

Think about it, please. A film Leica and a manual flash will do it.

Of course it's technically possible. But that does not guarantee consistent results. To find the right balance between ambient light and flash light is almost impossible without a look at the monitor. Exception may be if you always shoot the same lighting setup.
So manual flash + film camera + mixed lighting situation is a hit or miss situation.

 

[kxl]

Of course it's technically possible. But that does not guarantee consistent results. To find the right balance between ambient light and flash light is almost impossible without a look at the monitor. Exception may be if you always shoot the same lighting setup.
So manual flash + film camera + mixed lighting situation is a hit or miss situation.

+1

More miss than hits for me when doing this on film. Dragging your shutter really gives more reliable and consistent results on a DSLR.

 

[sevo]

Of course it's technically possible. But that does not guarantee consistent results.

With manual flash you had to be pretty fluent in GN calculations. Automatic flash made it pretty damn easy - set the flash to underexpose by a third stop, underexpose at the camera (by time setting, aperture must match the flash) by a stop, and you can hardly ever go wrong. That was the PJ magic formula for group portraits until TTL fill-in flash came up.

Sevo

 

[drewbarb]

Of course it's technically possible. But that does not guarantee consistent results. To find the right balance between ambient light and flash light is almost impossible without a look at the monitor. Exception may be if you always shoot the same lighting setup.
So manual flash + film camera + mixed lighting situation is a hit or miss situation.

Hardly. And, no- there's no advanced TTL mode required. I set my manual cameras to a slow-ish speed to gain background exposure from available light (I agree with Andy Kibber that 1/15th or 1/30th is usually the sweet spot where you get plenty of available light, very little subject movement blur, good exposure and great color, if you're using color). A typical scenario for me is 400 speed film, exposed at around 320, flash set to put out f5.6; my lens set half or a third of the way between f5.6 and f8, and my shutter speed set to 1/30th or slower. Works like a charm, every time, with every camera I own- and most of these have no meters, never mind TTL modes or other such nonsense. Backgrounds may be blurred and/or have funky colors, but so what? It's much better than a big dark nothing, and the subject is well-lit and shows proper color. Easy.

 

[PentHassyKon]

I know this method as ambient light balanced with flash. Amazing how some folks are not even aware of this method or don't use it on their auto-everything cameras. On my Pentax k200d there is "night scene portrait" mode. I doubt most users even know what it does. One does have to be aware of potential "ghosting" due to possible subject movement. The flash will freeze the subject but if you use to slow a shutter speed, the subject can ghost on you due to ambient exposure - I try to limit the shutter speed to no slower than 1/15, in some cases 1/8. Again depending on subject matter.

I previously used this method during weddings where one tries to include the stain glass or church interior while taking a portrait of bride/groom.

 

[charjohncarter]

payasam, that is a very nice tribute to Al. He taught me a few things, one was to be different. (that was by osmosis from seeing his work.)

 

[charjohncarter]

I know this method as ambient light balanced with flash. Amazing how some folks are not even aware of this method or don't use it on their auto-everything cameras. On my Pentax k200d there is "night scene portrait" mode. I doubt most users even know what it does. One does have to be aware of potential "ghosting" due to possible subject movement. The flash will freeze the subject but if you use to slow a shutter speed, the subject can ghost on you due to ambient exposure - I try to limit the shutter speed to no slower than 1/15, in some cases 1/8. Again depending on subject matter.

I previously used this method during weddings where one tries to include the stain glass or church interior while taking a portrait of bride/groom.

Another way with the Pentax DSLRs is to set it on manual and then hit the green button and/or adjust the f stop to the auto setting on your flash maintaining your green button EV (check that it is in the sync speed area). Then use your flash on auto setting with the f stop keyed into your camera. It sounds hard but works great. You can do this with almost any camera whether it has a meter or not.

 

[chris00nj]

I believe this technique is called "dragging the shutter." Despite auto-everything cameras, there are techniques that can distinguish a good photographer from someone who can press a button.

 

[PentHassyKon]

I believe this technique is called "dragging the shutter." Despite auto-everything cameras, there are techniques that can distinguish a good photographer from someone who can press a button.

Yes, very true. One still has to know what shutter speed your auto-everything camera picks otherwise you'll end up with the aforementioned ghost image.
With my meterless Hassy- I never had a problem knowing what shutter speed I had; it was always determined by an incident meter reading

 

[payasam]

Al Kaplan could not have spoken of the TTL sort of fancy modern stuff because he only used manual film cameras. In my estimation, there was little he did not know about their use and little he had not done with them.

 

[PeterV]

BTW, the automatic flash program of the Hexar AF works this way when the camera is in P-mode. Seems the engineers at Konica knew Al's trick as well!

 

[Arjay]

Another good piece of information: flash intensity is all that matters. If you use automatic mode, all you have to do is make sure the aperture is set properly for the flash, and that the shutter is below the required sync speed.

If you use AE mode in a Hexar RF or an M7, then you might want to make sure to get a defined exposure for the background, but ensure mild underexposure. Here's how to do that:

• Set your camera to AE mode.
• Select a working aperture on the camera and set the same value on your automatic flash (you might want to run some tests to find out if your flash exposes correctly for skin tones - some don't. Beware of black suits - they require special consideration.).
• Set a negative exposure value of -2/3 to -1 1/3 EV on your camera. Your camera's meter will measure for background exposure.
• Check your camera's measured exposure time. If it is too slow, change the aperture (on the flash too) until you're happy with the value.
• Make sure the camera's exposure is equal or longer than then camera's sync time. If not, open up aperture.

There's one exception to this rule - backlighting. In this case, you might want to have a correctly exposed background, but want to add some flash light to the foreground for - say - a -1 EV underexposure so that the picture still looks natural. With a Hexar RF or an M7, here's what you do:

• Set your camera to AE mode.
• Select a working aperture on the camera and set your automatic flash to an aperture value that's one stop slower (i.e. if your working aperture on the camera is f 4.0, then set f5.6 on your flash).
• Do not set an exposure correction factor on your camera!
• Check your camera's measured exposure time. If it is too fast, change the aperture (on the flash too, but 1 step slower) until you're happy with the value.

One word of caution: When taking pictures in this way, bear in mind that there will be two measurements that matter: Your camera's light measurement and your flash unit's light measurement. Your camera has a characteristic measurement behavior that most of us are aware of (mostly center-weighted) - so does the flash!

So, while you can measure with your camera, store the measurement and recompose for background exposure, your flash does not have this capability, and will alway measure its exposure directly when you press the shutter button. That is, your flash-lit subject should always be dead center in your picture, or else your flash-lit foreground might get severely overexposed.

 

[Andy Kibber]

Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but rear curtain synch generally looks better when dragging the shutter. I don't think you can do it with a Leica, but many (D)SLRs have the option.