How much light do you need?
What ISO on the camera?
The last few years have brought out cameras with very high ISOs with low noise.
Using a camera w/ high ISO and low noise opens up many possibilities.
Depends on the event. The clearest high speed images without breaking the bank are still done in darkness where the event is sensed and a trigger sets off the strobe.
I usually ran 400 or so ISO back then due to noise. A modern camera maybe run upwards of 1600 ISO.
The light duration typically doesnât exceed 1-2ms assuming a âslowâ event.
Actually quite a bit higher.
From a review on the Nikon D850
Native ISO Sensitivity: 64-25,600
Boost High ISO Sensitivity: 51,200-102,400
This is considered a pro-amateur camera.
The D5 is a pro camera at ~2x cost and has a lot more ISO top end.
Throw into the mix that there are good noise reduction techniques.
Cap bank discharge into LEDs should be well under 1-2 ms. Would make an interesting research project.
Edit - Canon camera have similar possibly better specs.
Running joke on high ISO capability - âAble to photograph a black cat in a dark coal mineâ.
Still a difference on if those ISO ranges are actually worth a damn for a quality photo. Since I havenât seen high ISO items from them in the recent years I canât say for sure.
To get a high quality image those settings are meaningless. With a modern camera I agree that ISO 1600 is going to be the practical limit. Older cameras will be less like 200 to 400. Cameras have gotten better but not that much better. At some point you run into issues where there simply arenât enough photons to create a clean image regardless of how well designed the sensor is.
Image was lifted from here (which is a great resource).
Maybe? A short duration flash (like 1/128 power) is around 1/20,000 of a second. A longer duration flash (like 1/1 power) is like 1/500 of a second. The exact times will depend on the model of the flash (some are faster and some are slower). If building something from scratch you can get a wider range of duration. This is based on typical commercially available flash units.
Iâm going to strongly disagree with that assessment. Not sure how DPR did that part of their review - and really donât care. A large portion of what I shoot is above ISO 1600. The sensor tek along with on board signal processing (DSP) yield great results. Editors that can process raw files extend the possibilities even further. On the other hand if all youâre shooting is jpg format youâre missing out big time.
My go to source for evaluating camera sensors and lenses is DXOMark.com.
Highly recommend you shoot raw and not limit yourself to shooting only up to ISO 1600. Youâre going to miss a lot of opportunities.
SoooâŚhow yâall going to proceed with this project?
Please do keep me / us up to date on the progress.
I think context is important here. Some use cases itâs fine to have noise and grain because it doesnât detract from the subject. In other use cases it does detract from the subject. You should give DP Review another go. Theyâre very knowledgeable and thorough.
WellâŚgot curious and went down the led flash rabbit holeâŚand found this interesting build.
Learned a new term - EOS - electronic over stress.
Why Cree leds were used. Stress testing, etc.
Links to interesting topics.
Flash head components can be separated from the control / trigger / timer brd.
Pretty basic stuff. Not enough light from one head, build several and sync.
QED