Coronavirus keeps affecting our lives in many ways. Most of us are still at home to stay healthy. But you don’t need to get bored at home. Photography is one of the best hobbies to have nowadays, you can even easily take photos at home.
You can try to capture creative photographs with your camera and MIOPS products, especially with Smart+ if you love high-speed photography and capturing instant moments.
This photoshoot you’re about to read the details is all about to have fun and try different things. You can also try to create an environment at your home and take similar photos and share with us by using the #miopstrigger hashtag on Instagram.
What Do You Need?
What can you do with a tennis racket, a tennis ball, a pinch of powdered sugar, and red pepper? When we talk about photography obviously they are not the ingredients of a meal recipe.
A tennis racket is not only for playing tennis and powdered sugar and red pepper are not solely used to cook a spicy, delicious meal. They can also be used for capturing amazing high-speed photo shoots.
So get ready to take great photos with the MIOPS Smart+ remote trigger in addition to a tennis racket, tennis ball, a handful of flavor, and red pepper. This article will guide you from beginning to end.
If you’re interested in taking high-speed photography, you should definitely try this in order to get the most creative hitting ball image.
Before we start, let's take a brief look at some useful tips that you can benefit from about high-speed photography:
Useful High-Speed Photography Tips Before Start
Capturing something very fast happening in a single frame is the basics of high-speed photography. Using the fastest shutter speed possible is the easiest way to take high-speed photos. But if you do this the results can be disappointing.
Instead of setting your camera to the fast shutter speed, you need to trigger your flash. Triggering your camera takes a fair amount of time and can be a delay between the triggering and the camera’s actual firing. The maximum shutter speed of your camera isn't as fast as you think. Setting the camera on bulb mode and using a pitch-black room will create the same effect.
To freeze the motion as much as possible you should use the shortest flash duration. The small, portable flashes have the lower flash power and flash duration, you can use them to get the lowest power possible.
Tennis Ball Photoshoot Setup:
- Camera
- Tennis racket (We prefered Wilson)
- Tennis ball
- Powdered sugar
- Red pepper
- Tripod
- Flashgun
- A light stand
- Sound sensor, remote trigger (e.g. MIOPS Smart+)
- Darkened room (if you are in daylight)
Camera Settings:
- Camera: Canon EOS 6D
- Flash: Canon Speedlite 600EX II-RT
- Lens: Canon EF 24-105 mm Zoom Lens
- Aperture: f/4L
- ISO: 500
- Shutter Speed: 2secs
- Focal length: 47mm
- Tripod: Manfrotto MK190XPRO3-3W
Smart+ Settings:
- Mode: Sound mode
- Sensitivity: 90
- Delay: 30ms
- Lock: ON
Let’s get started!
Behind the scenes of the Tennis Ball Hitting Photoshoot
In this photoshoot, we used Canon EOS 6D camera and Canon Speedlite 600EX II-RT flash in addition to Smart+ remote trigger. We put a pinch of powdered sugar on the racket’s strings and add some red pepper around the bumper guard to spice things up a little and to create a red square shape in the photo.
We connected the Smart+ to Canon 580 EX II-RT external trigger port with a PC sync cable. Then we set the flash to manual mode and flash duration to 1/128. On Smart+ we opened the sound mode and set the sensitivity: 90, delay: 30ms, and lock: ON and started the mode.
After that, we turned the lights off to have a pitch-black room. It’s important to take this kind of photo in the dark to benefit from the flash the most. The camera was set to 2secs of exposure and we made the camera ready to take photos by pressing the shutter button.
In this dark room and silent environment, we just strike the ball in the center of the racket, and soon after the ball hit the racket Smart+ detected the sound and triggered with a 30ms delay.
The Result
And the victory came! With the help of the MIOPS Smart+ camera trigger, we managed to photograph the dust layer on air while it was forming a racket silhouette in the air without distorting and dispersing its shape. Perfectly done!
Watch the video for the details:
Now It’s Your Turn to Take the Best Hitting Tennis Ball Photo!
If you want to take a high-speed photo with a tennis racket and ball like that all you need to do is so simple! Create a dark place, make the necessary camera settings, prepare the things you’ll need, and go! If you don’t have a remote trigger that makes that photoshoot easy, Smart+ will be a good option to consider.
Take impossible photos by turning your camera into a high-speed capture device!
MIOPS SMART+
We want to remind you that one more time: Don’t forget to share your hitting tennis ball photos on Instagram with the #miopstrigger hashtag and please follow us on social media. See you in another creative behind-the-scenes photoshoot article.
