2nd curtain sync with SLRs

Hello -- I was wondering if those of you who have gotten 2nd curtain sync to work with Ike or Inon strobes could pipe up and mention which combos work.

I can't seem to get 2nd curtain sync working with my strobes, which are Ike DS125 and Inons. With an E-TTL flash, the 1Ds fires a pre-flash signal at the beginning of the exposure, and then the "real" flash on the 2nd curtain. But when I tried it with my underwater strobes on manual, they went off at the beginning.

If its possible with a D70 I would also like to know.

It works fine on the D100 with either DTTL strobe or Nikonos style strobe (I have only tried the Sea and sea and subtronic strobes that I own). Since it comes from the camera it should work with any strobe with a Nikon. I dunno about Canons.

Alex

It also worked fine with my Oly5050 in the Tetra housing with the Inon 220s in manual. I never tried it with the pre-flash/TTL setting. FWIW.

Since I'm moving to the D70 and haven't received the housing I'm not sure on that yet. But I'll check it out.

Rand

Ok. I'll bite. Why/when use rear curtain?

Hi Peter, you know, I set that up as a my mode and never tried it. I always wanted to but just plain forgot about it. DUh.

The idea on land for instance is to use a long shutter speed on a moving car at night. Then at the end of the exposure, flash goes off. So you'd light up the car but the lights from the car would be recorded as a long winding trail of light. I'm sure you've seen similar.

The Underwater photos I've seen it used on, and not too many, give an unusual quality to the photo. Moving fish portraits. It's pretty obvious when the technique is used but you don't see it often. I'd like to get one of a shark. Had I taken such a picture, I'd be glad to post it but...

Rand

I actually prefer front curtain synch for slow flash exposures.

You need rear curtain (2nd Curtain) if you are keeping the camera still and the fish is swimming across the frame. This works because the fishy swims across the frame leaving a blurry trail in available light before the flash goes pop and freezes the subject. This image was taken on rear curtain:

If this shot was taken on front curtain the trails would make the fish look as if they were swimming backwards!

My problem with rear curtain is that it is pretty hard to know exactly where your main subject will be in the frame when the flash goes pop and freezes it. I prefer to use front curtain so that I can compose the image exactly as I want it and then create the blur in the direction I want by panning the camera. In otherwords by overtaking the fishy and making the blurs go behind it. This seahorse was taken in this way:

Alex

I have always used front curtain because I thought it was the only way I could be sure that the strobes had enough time to cycle. But then I typically shoot at 1/100 sec. Or faster for darker backgrounds e.g. 1/400 sec.

At these speeds would rear curtain allow enough time for the strobes to cycle?

And how, with manual exposure does the camera know how much time the strobe is going to need to do it's thing?

I think there is something fundamental that I don't understand?

Anybody?

Strobe to cycle???

The flash only takes milliseconds to fire. Therfore, with "long" shutterspeeds like 1/30th, you can tell the camera: "Fire the flash at the end of the exposure" or "Fire the flash at the beginning of the exposure."

If teh flash fires at the end of the exposure, you get a blur trail, with the subject frozen sharply at the front. If you fire the flash at the beginning, then you get a blurry trail in FRONT of the subject, which I think looks weird.

I have used rear-curtain sync with the S2pro and Ikelite strobes and it works fine.

Cheers

James

Peter:

The place to use rear shutter synch is with slow shutter speeds. As an example, if I shoot a wide angle photo in the low light in New Jersey, I may use a shutter speed as slow as 1/4 second. If the flash fires with front curtain synch, an moving animals will travel a certain distance across the image area in the 1/4 second that it takes for the shutter to close. The flash will freeze the subject when the curtain opens and there will be a blur in the direction that the animal is moving. It is an unnatural look. Using rear shutter sych, the subject moves across the image area and the flash firing at the rear shutter postion freezes the subject, creating a blur behind the animal. This is a very natural look.

At the shutter speeds that you are shooting, rear shutter synch has no advantage.

Alex-

that is a cool shot of the fish swimming...what would be a typical shutter speed for a photo like that? Heck, Im usually happy just to get the fish in the photo!...guess I can play with rear curtain now... Thanks for sharing those photos and techniques. Oh, can you acheive a similar effect in photoshop using the blur filters? or is that cheating.?!?

M.

Would the flash at front be nifty for retracting critters? E. g. an eel

or goby backing into a hole.

Dan

Rear curtain sync can provide wonderful picture like you saw with Alex's ones. But It's really hard to masterize the blur effect......

Here's a try in Martinique......

1/10 sec f 8

merlinos, is a "rayman" , shooting rays all year long .... and winnning prices with it :evil: , but not with this one I guess :wink:

Getting slow shutter speed blur effects is much easier with digital than film because you can immediately judge from the results what shutter speed is producing the most effective amount of blur.

Signore Starbuck, the seahorse was a 1/2 sec exposure, while the horse eye jacks (taken about 500m from where I am typing this) was about a 1/10th-1/20th sec exposure. That shot was taken on (gulp) film. My problem is creating crisp clean images as I can never stop myself pratting around with the settings.

Alex

Alex the first shot is what I had in mind someday for a group or single Reefshark. The problem, sacrificing known settings that will yeild a "Decent" shot for these esoteric but beautiful results you achieved.

I think the Jacks shot is fantastic. Guess it's just a matter of banking a few normal shots first and then going for it.

Rand