My attempt at high speed photography

[DDY]

I’ve dipped my toes into high speed photography for the first time today - shooting a plastic box and some smarties with a BB gun;


Sony Alpha 450, 2 sec exposure, F25-F35, ISO200 in a dark room using Sony 18-55mm kit lens.


Those were some shots I took to check if my sound activated slave flash trigger circuit worked, I used the circuit design from this website, apart from the transistors and triac; I already had all the parts left over from other projects so all in all this project set me back £2 and a few hours. The circuit is connected to my flash gun (Jessops 360) through a hot shoe adaptor via a PC connection, I’m still waiting for the PC cable to arrive from the far east so I’ve made do with some wire and blutack.




This is still very much a work in progress, my main priority is to figure out why there are four flashes in these shots, evidenced by the presence of four BBs and repeated debris my photos, and I’m guessing it’s to do with the flash, what do you think? How can I get rid of the extra flashing?

[Bobster]

erm, i'm not sure you're understanding the "high speed" part of what you're doing

2seconds is a really long time f/25-35?!

you should be looking at 1/200-250 for your shutter speed (sync with flash)

[Phage]

IIRC you keep the shutter open, and use a strobe to light the object once. This allows for speeds way beyond what can be achieved by a shutter.

[Bobster]

IIRC you keep the shutter open, and use a strobe to light the object once. This allows for speeds way beyond what can be achieved by a shutter.

as long as you kill ambient light

[DDY]

I did this in a dark room and could have used any shutter speed since the flash was set to trigger as I fired the pistol, yet I needed a bit of light to see what I was doing, shooting a tiny target isn't easy without any light hence the tiny aperture.

Again, I still need to work on the flash which strobes more than once, I might have to use a different flash gun or a DIY strobe.

[kalniel]

Sounds like it's trying to strobe to illuminate a faster-than-X-sync speed - if the controller is telling it that the exposure is really short for example.