Stroboscopic Flash Photography
- The Magazine For Photographers
- Oct 7
- 2 min read
What Is Stroboscopic Flash Photography?
In simple terms: instead of firing once, your flash fires multiple times during a single long exposure. Each flash burst freezes your subject in a new position, and all those bursts get recorded in one photo.
How It Works
You set your camera for a long exposure (say, one or two seconds), and then set your flash to stroboscopic mode, most speedlights have a setting called “Multi” or “Stroboscopic.”
This now lets you control three key things:
Frequency (Hz) —> how many times the flash fires per second.
Number of flashes —> how many total pops happen during the exposure.
Flash power —> how bright each flash is (lower power = shorter bursts, so you can fit more flashes in).
So, for example, if your flash is set to 5 Hz and 10 flashes, that means it will fire 10 times over 2 seconds (5 pops per second) and each pop will obviously freeze your subject in a slightly different spot/position (so make sure your subject actually moves).
How to Shoot It
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