stopping liquid in motion

I'm sure this has been talked about but I can't find anything by searching.

 

I'm looking for some tips on stopping motion of spilled liquid. Since my

strobes will only sync to 1/200 I'm worried that this shutter won't be fast

enough. I'm going to do some tests today, but if anyone has any

hints/tips/suggestions/examples etc I would be very interested :)

 

Thanks!

The synch speed of your camera is irrelevant. What matters is the duration of the flash itself.

 

Depending on the flash, the speed of flow, the direction of flow and the degree of image magnification, you may find that there is no problem.

 

Do your tests and see whether you really do have a problem

Garry's right. However: the perception of how frozen the liquid looks will be significantly impacted by how much the scene's ambient light in contributing to the exposure. The less of it, the better.

Camera speedlights (Nikon, Canon, Metz, Vivitar, etc) are extremely fast when at their lowest manual powers, like 1/64 power. This is plenty of power for milk drop work, still f/16 at maybe 10 inches. In a dim room, it does not matter if the shutter speed is 2 seconds... the flash is still maybe 1/20,000 second duration.

 

If your "strobes" means studio lights, such studio lights are very much slower, fine for their purpose, but far less suitable for this fast work.

 

See http://www.scantips.com/speed.html

Stacy,

 

All you need to know is here,

 

http://www.hiviz.com/tools/tools.htm

 

Enjoy.

Small flash units have a shorter flash duration as the power is decreased. A Nikon SB-800 has a flash duration of about 1/80,000 at minimum power, which will do a good job of "freezing" the motion of liquids if you get close enough and the ISO of your film or sensor is high enough.

 

If you want faster speeds or more power, you need deep pockes for an industrial unit, or a soldering iron and good term insurance for a home project.

Thanks everyone for the tips and links- they were very helpful! I ended up using two Canon 550 flashes- one on camera set to manual at 1/64 and the other on the right side of the camera. I also used a regular strobe at near full power in some shots to light the background, but the speedlights worked very well at stopping motion and we got some really fun spills :) I'll post a couple...

 

Thanks again!<div></div>