Flash Lighting - Questionaire

(Monday July 23, 2012)

It was nice to finally be back in class with everyone.

The best part for me was the fact we all had the opportunity to present/share our studio shots from last semester to everyone - great because i had not seen a great deal of work from others until now.

Anyway... the following information is based around an introductory powerpoint presentation given to us by Julian in class. It ended with a research task/questionaire for us to complete and here is my response.

How does electronic flash work?

• Energy is passed from the cameras batteries through a first transformer in which the voltage of the current is amplified.

• The charge is the passed to another set of coils inside another transformer then the high powered charge is stored in the flashes capacitor.

• The capacitor cant release its energy unless the atoms inside the flash tube are ionised.

• When you trigger the shutter the energy is sent to another transformer where the voltage increases so much much that the gas inside the tube ionises and completes the circuit and provides the user with their flash of light.

Describe electronic flash SYNCHRONISATION

Flash syncronisation is the ability of the camera to synchronise the timing of the shutter with the flash output produced by the speedlite. In other words, when the shutter release button is depressed the flash is also triggered resulting in the image being lit by the electronic flash.


Identify your cameras synchronisation speed.

I use the following equipment:

Canon 430 EXII speedlite matched with a Canon 60D DSLR

The speed light i own and use supports HighSpeed synchronisation. There is a dedicated button to turn this feature on and off very quickly (no menu to scroll through). As for what shutter speeds this speedlite will sync up to - it will sync with every shutter speed available on the 60D camera body, right up to 1/8000sec.

It also has a neat modelling light feature built into it that allows you to see how the flash will cast over your subject before you take the resulting photograph.