Max flash sync speed
In previous postings I have mentioned that the specific settings for a photo aren’t often of direct value to us in figuring out the method of exposure. But the one setting that is of huge importance when using flash, is your camera’s maximum flash sync speed.
When the ambient light levels are low, then your shutter speed can vary appropriately, depending on what you want to achieve. But once you work in bright conditions, or have your subject against a bright background, then most often it just makes the best sense to work at maximum flash sync speed, as in that image above.
There is something very sweet happening at that point, and I believe it is imperative for every photographer that use flash, to know what is happening, and why. I would venture as far as saying that this blog posting contains some of the most essential information I can give you about flash photography.
So let’s work through some of the basics …
Let’s work through a hypothetical scenario where our subject is in shade, and our background is much brighter.
For the following tutorial, get your camera and lens out, with a speedlight so that we can go through some of the settings.
Let’s say our background exposure is 1/60th @ f11 @ 200 ISO
Now, it should be obvious that the following are all the same exposures:
* 1/60th @ f11 @ 200 ISO
* 1/125th @ f8 @ 200 ISO
* 1/250th @ f5.6 @ 200 ISO
* 1/500th @ f4.0 @ 200 ISO
* 1/1000th @ f2.8 @ 200 ISO
