Reducing Strobe Power

Hi Damien,

this may sound obvious, but have you tried rear curtain flash sync on your camera? You should be able to get longer exposures with only short flash bursts when the shutter closes. I use this on land all the time to achieve the same results: flashed foreground with longer background exposure.

Also this is where a TTL controller comes in handy that just shuts off your strobe once it has emitted enough light.

Cheers,

Simon

Simon,

thanks for the suggestion but yes. I can't go longer or I'll need a tripod which is a pain to handle on tec dives.

Ds

this may sound obvious, but have you tried rear curtain flash sync on your camera? You should be able to get longer exposures with only short flash bursts when the shutter closes. I use this on land all the time to achieve the same results: flashed foreground with longer background exposure.

This doesn't differ from "normal" flash, where you would flash flash on first curtain. Still a short burst of flash. The only difference is that you get the movement of the background "after" the sharp picture, instead of "before" as you do with a rear sync. Typical example is a moving car. With normal flash you get the movement the car makes after the sharp exposure of the flash, so it kind of looks like its reversing. With the rear sync, you get blury movement and then the sharp details of the car so it seems like its moving forward.

If you dont shoot moving subjects where you care about whether the streaking is before or after the flash, it doesn't matter if you use forward or rear curtain sync.

/Björn

Hi Damien,

I recommend you go for a longer shutter speed. In wide angle I tend to shoot at 1/15 standard (dark waters here too, not even at depth) and 1/8 has also worked for me. Being in the water means that camera handling is less wobbly.

--Rob