Reply To: First Attempt — Basketball Flash Photography

[cameraclicker]

Sync speed varies by camera, it is the fastest speed at which both curtains are completely open (1Dx and D4 have 1/250th, most others are slower, all the way down to 1/125th for modern cameras.  I have old film bodies that sync at 1/60th). At faster speeds, the second curtain is closing while the first is still opening.  Studio strobes only fire once, so they are used at or below sync speed unless you want black bars across top and/or bottom of the frame.  Both Canon and Nikon have High Speed Sync which fires multiple flashes during the exposure to evenly light the frame.  Because they are firing several times, they are not using full power for each flash, so you don’t get the light the guide number suggests for a single flash.   Because of multiple flashes, stopping action like water drops does not work, a single flash is better for that.  For fill flash, it works pretty well, however.  And you can control a bunch of them off camera, so you can get the same power as studio strobes just by adding more of them.

Medium format cameras have a different shutter arrangement and higher sync speeds.