Frank, Unless you shoot more modern cameras, it is one of those features that you never knew about, so never needed. Basically, flash synch is when the first curtain is all the way open and then the flash fires, then the second curtain closes. The problem is that if the shutter speed is slow enough (along with enough ambient light) to record movement, the flash will fire causing a solid image, then the subject moves, then the second curtain closes. What this does is causes an image where it looks like the movement is backwards. You would think that the solid part of the image should be at the end instead of the beginning of the motion. Picture a speeding bullet, traveling left to right caught by the flash. With normal flash the left side of the frame would have a solid bullet, while the middle to right side would show a moving bullet.
With second curtain synch, the flash fires just before the second curtain closes. So now the picture would look like a moving bullet from the left frozen at the right edge of the frame. Now it looks like a speeding bullet. The same would hold true with someone walking, a car driving by, etc. HTH, Bruce Friday, January 2, 2004, 2:12:03 PM, you wrote: ft> Okay, time to admit my extreme ignorance right here in the open, on the ft> list. ft> What's trailing-curtain-sync? I've heard the term, but have no idea what it ft> is (other than what Paul just said about shooting slower than max-sync ft> speed). ft> There are obvioulsy at least two people on list right now who know <g>. ft> Would anyone care to disseminate your knowledge, as there may be others here ft> who don't know. ft> thanks, guys, ft> frank ft> "The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist ft> fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer >>From: Paul Stenquist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>Subject: Re: OT: why trailing-curtain-sync is useful >>Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 17:06:34 -0500 >> >>I >>On Jan 2, 2004, at 4:44 PM, Christian wrote: >>> >>>I've no idea what he was doing! I was thinking that he was panning using >>>flash and getting the blur-going-forward effect which should be solved >>>using >>>trailing-curtain-sync. >>> >> >>That's exactly what he was doing. You shoot at 1/15 or so with a flash >>that's close in exposure to ambient and you get some nice motion blur. But >>without trailing curtain sync they go the wrong way. i've done these kind >>of shots for magazines from time to time using my archaic equipment. The >>solution? You just have the driver back up. Of course that won't work when >>shooting race cars. If it does, they're probably in trouble and you might >>as well wait for the impending crash <g?. >> ft> _________________________________________________________________ ft> The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* ft> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ft> http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca
