How do you photograph subjects requiring high shutter speeds with off camera flash only

Excellent question! When the flash is the very dominant light source for my exposure and when the available light is not so strong, that it adds a lot to the exposure, then I can let my flash freeze the object. As long as I do not dial my flash (speedlight or monoblock) to a very high power level, the burn time of the flash will be relatively short. Let’s say 1/1000s. In this cases it does not matter what shutter speed I use, the freezing happens due to the short flash exposure.

If there is a ton of available light, or if have to dial up my flash to half power or full power, then this technique won’t work anymore. That’s why in those cases I am using a technique that works every time: Highspeed sync.

I am using speedlights from my camera manufactorer. They are capable of doing highspeed synchronisation. Basically that means, that for the fraction of a second my speedlights will act as a constant lightsourse. Once I press the shutter, my speedlights turn on and produce a relativly constant light, then my shutter opens and closes and only then the speedlights turn off. This way I can use whatever shutter speed. I can shoot at 1/8000s and still use my speedlights. In highspeed sync mode my speedlights are not as strong as they are in standard mode, but they are still strong enough to shoot for instance nice scenes at the beach during the day. However, this option is available only when using speedlights of the camera manufactorer.