Black Line/Complete blackness when Using a Flash

12 years 11 months ago #69179 by maghat
When I use my flash or flash units I get a black line or a black photo, depending on my settings. I am pretty sure it has something to do with aperature and/or exposure but I can't figure out how to control this. Can anyone help?


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12 years 11 months ago #69203 by Baydream
What aperture and shutter speed are you using. You may be shooting faster than the flash. Let us know.

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Photo Comments
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12 years 11 months ago #69265 by Stealthy Ninja
Yeh this is probably due to the shutter speed being too high and HSS not being turned on.
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12 years 11 months ago #69269 by serious series
The shutter is made up of two curtains. The first open opens, exposing the sensor/film, then the second one follows it to close the shutter. The time in between is the 'shutter speed'.

For very fast shutter speeds, the 2nd curtain might start closing before the first curtain is all the way open. This is a problem when using flash because the burst of light is very short, and of course, light travels at 'the speed of light'....so if the flash fires when the shutter isn't fully open, you end up with parts of the image that are severely underexposed (black line).

The camera will have a 'max sync speed', which is the fasted shutter speed at which the shutter will be fully open. It's probably in the neighborhood of 1/60 to 1/250.

So your solution is to always keep the shutter speed at or under your max sync speed when using flash.


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