How can a flash freeze motion but an LED lamp cannot?

Thursday 29 December 2022, 15:51 by Liesbeth van Asselt | 3,737 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

When we set the flash power, we often talk about 'turning the flash up' or 'turning the flash down'. That is not actually correct. What we are really doing is making the flash fire for longer or shorter.

The table below shows the flash duration of an average flash unit at the various settings. You can find this flash duration in the specifications of your flash unit.

The short flash pulse produced by a flash at low power gives us the opportunity to freeze motion using flash units. And that offers countless creative possibilities!

Experience shows that from a 'power' setting of 1/8, most moving subjects will be sharp in the photo. Compare it with a shutter speed of 1/6,000. Even then, most moving subjects will be sharp.

If you are photographing really fast subjects, such as some athletes, a lower 'flash power' is sometimes needed to get them truly sharp in the photo.

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About the author

Liesbeth fotografeert met haar bedrijf stapfoto.nl voor websites van bedrijven. Daarnaast verzorgt ze al sinds 2004 (vooral creatieve) workshops zoals lightpainting, flitsen in de natuur, fine art, frozen flowers, paintsplash, infrarood, icm en multi exposure. Daarnaast is er een Stapfoto vakgroep voor de meer gevorderde fotografen.

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