So you've been reading the forums and keep reading about flash durations and how it is so important, but you don't fully grasp why. This short article is my attempt to clarify what flash durations are, how come certain flashes are better than others and what you should look for in a flash.
Why is flash duration important?
An action sports photographer shooting without flashes relies on a high shutter speed to freeze the action of an athlete. If you've been shooting sports, you'll know that if you drop your shutter speed too low, the action becomes a little bit blurry, often called motion blur. When flashes are introduced to the equation, the photographer is limited by his cameras sync speed, often in the range of 1/200th - 1/500th of a second. To compensate for shooting with this slower shutter speed, the flashes must output more light than the ambient (or available light) and must do so in a very short burst.
Enlightened is currently scheduled to run from July 2 to July 30, 2008 at the Steam Whistle Art Gallery located at 255 Bremner Blvd in downtown Toronto (located directly across from the CN Tower). The official launch (Opening Gala) will be on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 from 7:00pm to 1:00am. Local artists are expected to be in attendance for judging. The show is open to the public all month long.
All chosen photography will be displayed in 2’x3’ (24"x36") light boxes and printed on backlit film with laminate. There will be a total of twenty-five light boxes on display. The show will be a mix of amateur, pro-am and professional photographers (amateur photographers will be designated as having three or less published pieces - please clearly identify in your submission if you are considered an amateur photographer).
Photographers will be eligible to WIN a $1,000.00 cash prize for having the "Best in Show" photograph. Photographs will be judged by the competing photographers on opening night.
Canvas art and graphic work will be displayed in traditional fashions and must come with hanging features. TMG will not be responsible for this hardware.
Ok so you logged on today and a few things have changed, and for the most part everything is looking really ugly. I've been working for the past couple of months on upgrading w&w to a new content management system, a new photo critiquing system, and somehow maintaing all of the data in the message boards, as well as members contact information. So far, it looks like all that has worked. So please let me know if you find any crazy anomolies by posting in the message forums, and please try out the new stuff. Enjoy. (Oh and don't forget to click on our BH and Adorama banners before you buy something from them )
HELP I CAN'T LOG IN???
if your user name contained punctuation or spaces, it no longer does. Your password has not changed, so; "Brian Garson" became "BrianGarson" and "Wu-Tang Killa Beez" becomes "WuTangKillaBeez". With the same password.
I picked up a used Nikon D70 off Ebay at the beginning of 2007 for $400 Canadian. The camera was officially released in January of 2004 so it’s quite old. It’s got a 6 megapixel CCD sensor, and a slow ass frames per second count, and a very small buffer. So while it's not a great action photographers camera per se, since it can't handle any type of sequence photography, it is still in my opinion an essential camera to be added to any action photographers bag because of it's high flash sync capabilities (we're talking pushing 1/1000th of a second with PW's).
I picked up a used Nikon D70 off Ebay at the beginning of 2007 for $400 Canadian. The camera was officially released in January of 2004 so it’s quite old. It’s got a 6 megapixel CCD sensor, and a slow ass frames per second count, and a very small buffer. So while it's not a great action photographers camera per se, since it can't handle any type of sequence photography, it is still in my opinion an essential camera to be added to any action photographers bag because of it's high flash sync capabilities (we're talking pushing 1/1000th of a second with PW's). 
