Flashes fired like machine guns in public event

<p>In public event when politicians or celebrities showed up, reporters fired their hotshoes flashes like machine guns. <br>

Those flashes did not look unusual, just like a hotshoe Nikon SB800. Just wondering how they set the power recycle time so quick ? Did they carry external battery pack ? Will it burn the flash ? </p>

<p>Are they using HSS which is more a burst than the full flash? It will damage the flash in the long run.</p>

<p>Might burn flash if done too excessively. - Lots of hotshoe flashes come with "auto winder" setting(s) for that scenario. these are usuallyreduedpower to ensure sufficiently fast recharge.<br>

Considering the ISO range of Nikons (3200 usable) one doesn't need much flash power anymore these days.</p>

<p>Yes, they use external battery packs. They will recycle faster.</p>

<p>Some also set their flash to manual mode and a little lower power setting as well as sometimes a wide lens and fixed focus setting. Then you can shoot really fast.</p>

<p>Cameras like D4 does about 10 fps so you really get a burst of flash.</p>

<p>I believe they are all professional photographers or reporters. What the hack they need to shoot like machine guns for standing or speaking politicians ? Or they don't mind to burst their flashes for a good picture ? </p>

<p>Viewers are increasingly sophisticated. Journalists are increasingly tempted to skew perceptions. A 5-10 fps burst may capture a nuance of expression that makes the difference between an ordinary and extraordinary photograph amid a glut of similar photos of the same person from the same event. A slightly arched eyebrow, a slightly squinted eye or curled lip may convey the subconscious perceptions of the editor, or suit the conscious agenda of the news/views media outlet. Depends on how they wish to portray the subject, whether it fits the lede or pull quote, or is simply a memorable photo regardless of agenda.</p>

<p>Hoi, as Lex explained. - Look at the entire picture: some $22k+x burried in equipment. Probably some time wasted commuting and loitering, a job to loose & bills to pay. Why cheap out? Better gun the politician down with your left camera and feeling you got him switch to the right one, just in case...<br>

Also: Do you want to edit that **** or is it easier for you to pick a keeper JPG and upload that one? - Probably the best bet to have the camera shoot RAW + JPG in auto bracketing mode. If your editor loves the facial nuance in the far off shot most, you can still pull it out of the RAW, but you'll flash 3x as much.<br>

If equipment costs half a man per day, it should work for it. And I wasn't saying they fry their flashes. - My outdated Metz has "winder" and "motor drive" manual settings for such situations. Doing a dozen pops at that reduced power doesn't really harm it. - Was there a warning to give it a break after 6 full pops in a row? <br>

Anyhow: A worn out flash barely matters in the big picture of journalism cost.</p>

<p>I'm a former newspaper photographer and yes, many news photographers use an external battery pack to shorten recycling time. As Lex says, you shoot as many frames as you need to capture exactly the right expression. News photographers are often on deadline and need to get the shots in a hurry and get out of there, so they can't shoot one frame, wait a minute to think about it and then shoot another. <br /><br />That said, the impression of "flashes fired like machine guns" may not reflect what any one photographer is doing. When you have half a dozen or a dozen photographers gathered around a subject and each is shooting a burst of maybe five frames at almost the same time, it looks to the eye like 60 flashes, not five. So no one photographer is actually firing as many frames as it looks like.<br /><br />I've been using external battery packs and firing bursts for 30 years on everything from a Vivitar 283 to a Nikon SB-900 and I have yet to burn out a flash. The SB-900 has a ridiculous thermal overload "feature" intended to protect the flash that will shut you down in the middle of a job if it thinks the flash is too hot. The first thing I had to do when I bought mine was to turn the feature off, along with the annoying "beep" that tells you it is overheating. Did that about two years ago and the flash is still firing just fine, bursts included.<br /><br />As for a machine gun analagy, I think the sound of a dozen DSLR shutters firing at once at a news conference is much more like a machine gun that the flashes. :)</p>

The late writer Norman Mailer held the opinion that it is the repeated assault of a barrage of flashing strobes that makes

celebrities stupid.

<p>Thanks all for your advice, I learnt a lot. <br>

I have Nikon SB800 and D300. Without an external battery pack, can I pump up ISO, wide open aperture, reduce flash power to 1/16 or 1/32 and get flash burst for 5 seconds (5 fps) ? </p>

<p>Hoi -- Not sure exactly how fast the SB 800 can shoot. But by "burst" I don't mean 5 fps. I mean maybe five shots over anywhere from 5-15 seconds. Click. Click-click-click. Click. You don't just hold down the button indiscriminately and hope something happens. You shoot when you see what you like, or you anticipate a smile, grimace, gesture, etc., and try to time your click to capture it. You shoot as many times as you need to and as often as you need to. But you don't just hold down the button -- that's called "spray and pray" and guarantees nothing.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Without an external battery pack, can I pump up ISO, wide open aperture, reduce flash power to 1/16 or 1/32 and get flash burst for 5 seconds (5 fps) ?"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Hoi, surely the easiest way to answer your own question is to try it?</p>

<p>Anyway, it should be no problem to shoot almost continuously at 1/16th power and 5FPS. The flash can (in theory) fire 16 times without needing to recharge at all at 1/16th power. Now the recycle time with good batteries is around 4 seconds, so the flash will have 75% recharged again before the first 16 shots are completed, giving you another 12 or so shots... and so on.</p>

<p>An SD-8 external pack approximately cuts the recycle time in half, meaning you definitely could shoot continuously at 5 FPS and 1/16th power, or up the power to 1/8th and still get a 5 second burst.</p>

<p>Your D300 and SB-800 should handle up to 5 fps in full TTL flash mode out to a reasonable range, depending on ISO, with good consistency. My tests varied just enough in shot-to-shot flash output to be measurable in a histogram, but barely visible. Beyond 5 fps you'll begin to see some underexposed frames and no-flash frames. The D300 will be limited in distance by the maximum optimal ISO, probably around 1600 at most (my ancient D2H is limited to ISO 400 unless I plan to use a lot of noise reduction). Newer FX models can handle 6400 and higher to really extend flash range in burst shooting.</p>

<p>If the subject-to-camera distance remains fixed, Nikon's FV lock feature is handy. It ensures consistent flash output, shot-to-shot, even in rapid fire up to a reasonable rate (around 5 fps). But if the subject or photographer is moving, even a little, TTL may provide more consistent flash.</p>

<p>It's occasionally useful for candid and event photos indoors or at night at close range. I've used it to photograph weddings as favors for family and friends, mostly of the bridal march and bride/groom exit, kids serving as ring bearers and flower strewers, etc. Direct flash isn't a great look, but it's better than nothing in cave-like conditions with no handy bounce surfaces (like some rural churches in huge metal industrial buildings). Sometimes the paparazzi look is cool for younger people, although some retouching is usually needed to minimize blemishes and flushed faces.</p>

<p>Almost completely off-topic, but this thread has sparked a thought. How much flash power is consumed (or wasted) by the I-TTL pre-flashes? This surely reduces the number of flashes available in a burst for a given exposure and flash power. All-in-all I think manual control, or AA mode, must be more efficient and consistent.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Almost completely off-topic, but this thread has sparked a thought. How much flash power is consumed (or wasted) by the I-TTL pre-flashes? This surely reduces the number of flashes available in a burst for a given exposure and flash power. All-in-all I think manual control, or AA mode, must be more efficient and consistent.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>How much is wasted is depending on the ambient lighting levels and where the flash is pointing. First the camera fires off one preflash. If the ambient is bright then the preflash is stronger. If the preflash wasn't strong enough because the flash head is pointing elsewhere, or has a light modifier on it, a second preflash is fired off. This second preflash is stronger than the first.<br /> Preflashes of course waste power but how much? In my testing I found out that full power in iTTL mode (with preflashes) is a little more than 1/3 stop less powerful than full power in manual mode (no preflashes). In the test case I made my very best to ensure that the preflashes were as power demanding as possible. So this means that the flash can use around 33% of full power for preflashing.</p>

<p>According to <a href="http://cms.diodenring.de/electronic/microcontroller/110-ittlanalysis#preflash_2">iTTL protocol reverse engineering</a> done by someone the actual numbers are about 1/128 power for the first preflash and 1/32+1/3 power for the second. That is 37%, so close to my measurements.</p>