Flash Photography - Balancing Ambient Light

In today’s video I discuss how shutter speed directly affects ambient light when using flash. I use photos I shot with my Fuji X100 and show you what happens when you change your shutter speed by just 2 stops, the ambient light gets crushed and the difference is almost night and day. Literally. The scene goes from a nice balanced ambient look to a dramatic look that almost looks like a different time of day. Aperture, ISO and Flash Power remain the same, but by changing the shutter speed, the ambient changes. Interestingly, the exposure is only affected in areas where ambient light and of flash spill off would be in that the flash power on the model and product remain constant. This is a nice nugget to keep in your tool belt in that you can offer a variety of different looks with your images simply by making minor tweaks to your shutter speed.

The Fuji X100 has an interesting advantage over a conventional DLSR in that it’s got a leaf shutter system that allows for high speed sync up to 1/4000th of a second, natively.

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