Slow Sync Flash

- choose a dark background. I've been taking ~50 shots with different f/ and speed and flash power settings in the kitchen with light cabinet background and the hand just doesn't show up. Turned out hand color is same as cabinet and ghostly movement just get lost in the cabinet color background. Once I switched to black background, boom! same setting in the kitchen shows the

movement now. It's about background. Just like my smoke lesson.

- Manually expose (without flash) for a little darker than 0 exposure (-1 or -2). If it's too dark, the movement is not seen (just like noodle smoke lesson). If you can't see the movement by eye without flash, you won't see it at all. So expose for some normal exposure. 0 is fine too depends on how much the hand can be seen.

- Speed! I've been trying 5 sec, 4 sec, 3 sec , 2 sec. Shorter has more precise movement. Just hit the object and the trajectory is more natural looking. ~2 sec is perfect. Now with 4 secs, movement path is wiggly. And focusing on the hand is tough unless it's very quick. Don't rest the hand at the e

nd because it'll be shaking unless it's very quick. I hold my breath so that the hand at the end will appear sharp. no. It's very hard to be still for the last 1 sec. Btw, counting in 1 Mississippi works perfect for timing.

- My mistake is using squishy ball. It bounces back so the ball just showed up blurry, so later pics, I dont touch the ball anymore to have it sharp in the pic. (too bad I aldy deleted them too fast. Could have shown it here of how bad the squishy ball looks because of its squishness). Well, even if I smash a glass, it'l be blurry too unless it's quick enough. Because most of the time of a perfect glass is exposed most of the time during 4 sec, so the broken glasses will be mixed with perfect glass. So, if you want something pure sharp, don't ruin its shape at all during shutter open time.

For next time:

- off-camera flash -> set 2nd curtain sync on flash by >>> arrows

- Set a better background. See inspirations

- again snoot. My snoot doesn't seem to work as desired. This time I didn't learn much from the flash. It was just trial and error.

- plan , plan , plan!