A great way to capture movement when using flash photography is something called rear curtain sync or front curtain sync. Both of these options are available for longer exposures on most advanced cameras. The concept is pretty simple. The shutter is kept open longer to capture any available ambient light which creates a blur due to movement within the framed picture and blur from movement of the camera if shooting handheld. When the flash fires, it freezes the action at that point, creating proper lighting of the subject while everything leading up to or following the firing of the flash creates blurred movement. Front curtain sync means the flash fires when the shutter first opens, while in rear curtain sync the flash fires just before the shutter closes. The advantage of rear curtain sync is that things are blurred up until the final movement. The disadvantage here is that everything is blacked out by the shutter of your camera so you are not actually able to see the moment you are capturing when the flash does fire. Either of these options are great to use when photographing any movement indoors, especially dancing, as I did at a recent wedding.
I wanted to capture some images of my daughter twirling in her dress as she loves to do. I used front curtain sync partly because I was shooting hand held, but mainly because I wanted to capture her twirling while she was actually facing the camera. The shutter was open for 1 second. You can see the effect that the front curtain sync gives the picture. You can feel the movement, but the flash freezes the subject enough for details. Notice also the blur effect of the people that are in the frame but out of the optimal flash range.
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Here’s a picture of a bunch of people dancing using rear curtain sync. I held the camera above my head to capture the image.
Front or Rear Curtain sync, a great way to capture movement!
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I do like your posts, but i find them as pretty quick for beginners. May just you please prolong them a bit next time? Thanks for the post.
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Hi Charlie, thanks for your comments. It’s difficult to write posts that will suit everyone’s needs. Even more difficult when we are talking about many different types of gear that we are using. Anyway, i will do my best to slow it down a bit too 🙂
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