We admit it — we did the fast shutter speed images with 2 small Canon Speedlites. But we could have used sunlight, had we the patience to wait for it. Or continuous lights, but it would take a lot of lights to allow exposures at f16 at 1/2000, which is about where you need to get to freeze images. The point here is how you can freeze action with short duration exposures — however you achieve them. This is marginal for point-and-shoot cameras, but not impossible.
Bottom Line: Fast exposure time allows us to freeze action and see things we can't normally see, so the results are often interesting.
Left
Right
Nicole tosses cherry tomatoes and I try to take the photo at the best moment. It took about 15 tries to get a good one with a nice pattern of flying tomatoes.
70mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Nicole drops raspberries and I try to capture them as they drop. Takes a bunch of tries to get a good one. If you set up lots of bright continuous lights, you could simply shoot on motor drive, but that much light would parch Nicole and dry up those sensitive raspberries.
70mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Tossing the glazed popcorn from the frying pan was messy and there was popcorn all over the kitchen counter and floor, but Bell the Dog thought this was the best sequence we ever did.
70mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Breaking a cracker and trying to get the crumbs to pop out. We poured a ton of salt on the cracker — otherwise there was nothing to see.
100mm, f5.6, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Nicole, in disgust, tosses her cards. Better than tossing your cookies. This also took some practice to get a good arrangement of card in mid air and not blocking Nicole's face.
100mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Nicole tosses her hair. Here, the flash to her left and behind does a nice job backlighting the hair. Without that, it would mostly fade into the background, like the hair on the other side.
90mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Eyedrop in the eye. In order to keep Nicole from drowning in eye drops, she was actually dropping them behind her eye, which the viewer can't tell.
The camera can, and does, lie. Constantly.
100mm macro lens, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Making lemonade. Water and related fluids are among the most interesting subjects to catch with high-speed exposures.
100mm macro lens, f4, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO
Nicole tosses cherry tomatoes and I try to take the photo at the best moment. It took about 15 tries to get a good one with a nice pattern of flying tomatoes.
70mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Nicole drops raspberries and I try to capture them as they drop. Takes a bunch of tries to get a good one. If you set up lots of bright continuous lights, you could simply shoot on motor drive, but that much light would parch Nicole and dry up those sensitive raspberries.
70mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Tossing the glazed popcorn from the frying pan was messy and there was popcorn all over the kitchen counter and floor, but Bell the Dog thought this was the best sequence we ever did.
70mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Breaking a cracker and trying to get the crumbs to pop out. We poured a ton of salt on the cracker — otherwise there was nothing to see.
100mm, f5.6, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Nicole, in disgust, tosses her cards. Better than tossing your cookies. This also took some practice to get a good arrangement of card in mid air and not blocking Nicole's face.
100mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Nicole tosses her hair. Here, the flash to her left and behind does a nice job backlighting the hair. Without that, it would mostly fade into the background, like the hair on the other side.
90mm, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Eyedrop in the eye. In order to keep Nicole from drowning in eye drops, she was actually dropping them behind her eye, which the viewer can't tell.
The camera can, and does, lie. Constantly.
100mm macro lens, f16, 2 Speedlite flashes, ISO 1000
Making lemonade. Water and related fluids are among the most interesting subjects to catch with high-speed exposures.
