Freezing Action With Speedlites

On this video, photographer Jay P. Morgan from the website the Slanted Lens takes a look at freezing action using speedlights and different shutter speeds.

On this shoot Morgan had several key things he wanted/needed to do:

Shooting in direct sun.
Freeze the rope.
Blur the rope.
Get interesting light.

To achieve all of the above he used speedlights as small reliable lighting that can freeze movement – notice the movement of the rope looks different when shooting in 1/50 second versus shooting at 1/200 of a second. The first gives a blurred rope while the second is able to freeze it completely – in both cases the flashlight is able to freeze the slower movement of the subject itself.

You can find many more lighting videos and tutorials on our photography lighting section here on LensVid, and you can find all of Jay P. Morgan’s videos here on LensVid on the following link.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.