Comment by kebman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kebman | Hacker News Reader

I've used various techniques for slow sync flash throughout my photography career. Worked exceptionally well for stage photography, night-time events, electronica concerts, and the like. Slow sync flash is when you let ambient light expose the film or sensor for a while, before you freeze the scene by activating the flash late. It really takes "painting with light" to a new level, though it's of course not the only way to use intentional camera movement.

Nearly all my photographs from such events use some kind of intentional camera movement together with a delayed or early flash sync. Slow sync flash is a delightful technique that you can be really, really creative with. Try it with double exposures, for instance, or with weirdly synced monoblocs.

I've seen great photos taken of dancers and animals in movement done that way. Moreover, this technique (if you've got it buried in your camera settings somewhere), sets you free to really disregard some of the holy tenets of photography, which is to never, ever move the camera, ever. Nay, in fact it prompts you to be dynamic and jittery, to lounge forward into the music, and let the final image really SHOW how great that moment really was.

This is one of two ways to do this (as you know), called rear curtain sync (or the flash fires at the end of the exposure). You can also use front curtain sync, which fires at the start of the exposure, and get a slightly different effect.

For example, with a stationary camera and a galloping horse, front curtain sync would show a ghost of the horse running forward from its image, whereas rear curtain sync would show the ghost run towards the image (ie the horse would have a ghost "tail").

I’ve always preferred the results of first curtain flash as they seem to make more visual, and temporal, sense to me, IMAGE->trails, rather than trails->IMAGE.

I think it really depends on the subject and your own personal aesthetic. I prefer rear curtain, because it makes more sense to me that the moving object has a "tail", but it's too specific to the subject to really have a solid rule.

You are absolutely correct and my comment is exactly backward from my intended meaning.

Link to their Youtube channel, if you are interested in some of the artists's work: https://www.youtube.com/@ICMPhotoMag

Also, some street examples in B&W: http://www.alexeytitarenko.com/

Do you have examples of good images made this way available to the public? I've only ever seen it used sloppily with the intent of hiding bad composition using a fancy technical effect, so it'd be really nice to see something else!

Check this out https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/t_share/MTc0MjgyM...

I assume one flash at the start and one at the end of movement

How do you know their intent? Composition is largely a matter of cropping if you already have the basics down. On top of that, what is perceived as "good" is often very subjective, especially within art. Personally my main intent for using the effect was the vivid colours and the interesting streaks and shadows they make in the final image, and not really to cover anything up. The effect brings a certain life to the photo that a regular still just can't present, especially considering how straight flash photography too often comes off as really dull when you are forced to use only the hotshoe. But there is far more risk involved when using the effect, because when you move the camera, you often cannot be certain of the end result. Even more so with concert photos. They are made in an often very chaotic environment where you have little control, and where you more than likely are shoved around by the crowd as well. The slow flash really accentuates that, and you have to hope your movement syncs up with whatever is happening on the stage or around you while the shutter is open, which can be for quite a while depending on your settings. But then for that reason I think it's the most rock 'n' roll way of taking pictures. On the flipside the images does come out as very stylized, which no doubt isn't everyone's cup of tea.

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