Jump to content

Strobe Lighting


rose_bud

Recommended Posts

can you send me a link?

 

I'm talking about the special calibrated strobe lights, capable of flashing up to hundreds of

times per second. You sometimes see them in clubs where they are used to give an

illusion of slow motion. Or shoots where you might want to capture something like water

or powder falling etc... and normal flash is'nt fast enough...

 

I wanted someone to be able to give me examples and see how you use it, it surely cant be

as simple as switching it on and sync ing it to the camera ....

i dont know i cant semm to find any samples on google easily and my local lighting depts

hire them but dont really know how to use them....

 

so i thought i'd ask here :)!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Strobe lights in clubs are different from photo strobes. I can't ever imagine using "club strobes" in a normal studio situation. Camera strobes should be perfectly capable of freezing just about any motion you want. The problem may be the sync speed of the camera. Some cameras fastest sync speed is 1/60th while others are 1/500th or faster. There are certain high-speed camera strobes that, when matched with the right camera, can sync at 1/3000th or something crazy like that. The only benefit to "club strobes" that I see is if you wanted recreate what you see in a club. Maybe having someone run across the frame while leaving the shutter open for 3 seconds. Then you would have like 15 "frozen" images of the runner at different parts of the frame. I highly doubt those club strobes are powerful enough for photo work (at least the ones you can buy in the store). You can also use camera strobes to achieve that "runner" effect by firing them multiple times. I don't really see any benefit to having a club strobe that is capable of firing many times in a second. Maybe an intersting special effect, but that's it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

gosh i didnt actually mean using a club strobe...

 

this is actually more difficult than i imagined :)

 

does anyone know about using 'strobe' lighting at all... i mean its not the same as normal

flash and its quite an old system as far as i have been told but gives a fantastic light source...

lie capturing every partical of powder in make up when you splash it over a models face.. for

example...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

in the contect of still photography, what is mostly likely meant by "strobe" is electronic

flash.

 

There are uses for stroboscopic lighting in still photography and generally stroboscopic

lighting is iused to depict specific stages of movement over a period of time. Gjon Mili was

an early master of this technique.

 

Also see: http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/text-digital-stroboscopy.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you just want a single, very brief flash of light that is capable of freezing fast motion? This can be achieved by many flash units by using them on low power: as you turn the flash power down the duration of the flash gets shorter - typical flash durations at the minimum setting can be as short as 1/30,000 second. Is that what you want?

 

Best, Helen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...