The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes

FP Means Good DOF

ONE OF THE MANY BENEFITS of auto FP high-speed sync is limited depth of field. I say this advisedly, of course, ‘cause shallow depth of field may not be where you want your picture to live. But when doing portraiture, there is no better way to direct the viewer to the face of your subject than by throwing everything else out of focus.

In bright conditions with digital, you are fill flashing at 1/250^th of a second at f/11 to f/16. Not good, most of the time. You will be stressing that small flash like crazy, draining your batteries at a precarious rate, and slowing your pace of work down to a crawl. Auto FP high-speed ...