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Flash synchronization issue

gogo1
Contributor

PowerShot sx730 hs

It looks the flash speed is not synchronized.

If someone moves during the shooting, he gets smashed head or body. The woman and the man on the right.

This is the first camera from more than 10, which has such issue. Is it adjustable or I need to send it for repair?

Attached original and  fixed head.

IMG_0101a  original.jpgIMG_0101 copy.jpg

17 REPLIES 17

MikeSowsun
Authority
Authority

Please explain “smashed head”. 

Mike Sowsun

I am guessing it is a long shutter speed with flash with a lot of ambient light. Somone moved after the flash and caused a double exposure looking like a "smashed head".

That was my thoughts too, but the first photo doesn't appear to show "smashed head" or any other type of movement.  The second photo is the same as the first, but it has been edited by cropping out the the man and child, and adding brightness. 

 

I am still confused. 

Mike Sowsun

If the problem is movement during slow sync flash, the solution is to simply disable "Slow Synchro" in the flash menu by changing it back to "Auto" or "On" instead.

 

_Clipboard01.jpg

Mike Sowsun

Thank you for the replies. I checked the flash mode, but unfortunately it is not the problem , because it was on "on" , not slow sync mode.
I found difficulties to upload *.psd file on Canon and Imagebam (surprised). Please , download it from the link to see the face and then click on layer 1 to see how supposed to look really the face. The terrifying fact is that this happens to any picture with flash, when someone moves.

press on 3 dots > download

link 

 

and EXIF file EXIF.jpg

From the nearly square format of the first picture it appears to have been heavily cropped on the left side. Also the light fall-off from the flash seems to only affect the right side of the image. The two women and the young girl are pretty well lit and focused and I don't see anything that resembles a flash synch problem, no "ghosting" or motion blur.

 

The poor fellow on the right does appear to have his head squashed a bit though. But this shot was taken at the absolute widest end of the zoom and being nearly out of the frame it's not surprising that he's picked up some distortion. He's also under exposed, likely because the on-camera flash isn't designed to light up such a wide field of view.

 

If you were able to shoot this scene again try zooming in slightly so the flash can do a better job of lighting the narrower field of view. If you were shooting a larger group of people and needed to zoom out wider that might be the time to try the "slow-synch" flash setting and increase the ISO a bit if the camera will allow it.

I would agree with you for the man, if the whole right part of the image was distorted, but it is only his head. His arm and leg, child’s hand look realistically.

Did you check the *. Psd file? You will see the difference, because the woman on right doesn’t have ugly Halloween face, like on the original picture, but it has to be as on the edited one.

Hi gogo1,

 

Is this a consistent problem with other images in other situations or did it only happen in this situation? This looks to me like as others have said, this could be a matter of lens distortion at the widest angle, especially since the man's head is in the far corner of the image where it would show the most.

Like I mentioned, it is not the problem with the wide-angle lens in this case. I resolved it with cropping the picture. The problems are the faces in the center. I have several pictures distorted like that. The annoying thing is it happens regularly and for me this is when one of the people turn his head at the time of shooting and his had gets smashed.

 

When I started shooting 40 years ago, there was no automatic adjustment and it was hard to determine proper shooter speed and exposure. I was extremely happy, when I used flash, because everything was frozen. But not with this camera.

 

I agree with Mike, who suggested to check flash mode sync.

If it was not a wrong mode it might be some other issue.    

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