Sync Speed

Hi. I am a mature student in Graphic Design, and in a introductory

Photography course. I have a Nikon F-401 camera, and misplaced the

manual for it, and therefore it is on order, but not doing me much

good as I have assignments from the teacher, (who incidently doesn't

care much for Nikon, and told me to figure out the camera myself, as

he is not familar with it). Anyways, I need to take some pictures

with a flash for a backlighting project, but I have no idea what my

camera's sync speed is and I have been searching for that info on

the internet, with no luck. Also, I am trying to understand the

concept of sync speed. If I manually set the shutter speed to say,

125, (which I think my camera is set to do), does that mean the

flash only fires at this speed, or will it also fire with slower

speeds as well, say 60, 30?

Thank you for your time

You can use your flash at any shutter speed that is AT or BELOW the sync speed. So if your sync speed is 125 then you may use the flash at 1/125, or 1/60, or 1/30 ... But Not at 1/500.

 

 

There were several variations of the F-401; I believe yours has a sync speed of 125. Go to Google.com and search for 'f401 sync speed'. You will get a bunch of hits.

As I am new to understanding photography, I have another question. I was just practicing with my new flash, no film, and wandering about, why if I set my shutter speed to 250, and 500, and manually set my aperature as well, (assuming I have a sync speed of 125), why does the flash still go off and fire?. I thought it wouldn't fire because I manually set the shutter speed over the sync speed I think my camera has.. Will it always fire no matter what shutter speed is manually set? Thanks again

In regards to your second question. The flash will still fire at any speed, but

what happens if you exceed the sync speed, is that you will end up with only a

small part of the frame exposed. With a camera with a focal plane shutter, the

shutter consist of two curtains, depending on the shutter speed the second

curtain may start moving before the first is all the way across. This creates a

slit that is travelling across the film. If you fire the flash when there is only a slit,

the flash will only light up that area. So the sync speed is a speed at which the

first curtain is all the way across before the second one starts moving.

 

Hope this helps.