Water Balloons

[NewStuff]

A little backstory to fill you in. Me and a colleague have a friendly rivalry in work. Suddenly, out of nowhere another lad ups and buys a 7D, and now thinks he's the best photographer in the world. To try to gently show him it's not quite that easy, the first colleague set him a challenge to capture a popped water balloon.

Now, somehow, this has been turned into a competition (Still friendly) between the 3 of us, but I'm not sure if I have the kit to get this shot. I have a 550EX which has a decent strobing ability, and I hope it would do it. I can't see how to sync things up though.

Any suggestions? I don't want to outright cheat, but pointers in the right direction would be most helpful.

My main idea was to set this at dusk/night, trigger a long exposure and manually strobe while popping the balloon (with a catapult with a sharp object in it). I planned to shoot on the Pentacon 300/4 to lose the background and keep the camera out of the waters reach.

Am I barking up the wrong tree with this?

[my_photography]

I have never shoot anything like this but here is what I think.

With correct timing, perhaps you can produce nicer photos with long exposure but my thinking is it should be easier to get the shot with continuous shots thus exposure should not be too long.

[NewStuff]

Yes, I would like to sync up at say 1/1000 or faster, but I can't see how to sync the Camera (EOS 400D), at a faster speed than 1/200, hence the Long Exposure idea.

[F16SUNSHINE]

If it is dark enough your strobe affectively becomes the shutter.
A strobe blast is faster than 1/2000. If the shutter is open, the strobe will "stop" any object that is in the frame. No need to sync higher speeds.

[Orio]

I confirm what Andy says, a shutter speed of 1/200 will only catch whatever light can be catched at that speed. This means that if the ambient is dark enough not to impress the sensor significantly at 1/200, the speed of the strobe becomes irrelevant, the camera will record only what the strobe will lighten plus whatever ambient light can come through at 1/200 (in a dark studio, that means none).
Remember to measure the light with a flash-compatible hand meter before shooting, because you will have to set the aperture (or the ISO, or both) accordingly.
You will have to use manual mode, of course.

[Jieffe]

You need a sound-activated trigger. I googled this cheap trick, maybe I'll try it later

[NewStuff]

Thanks for the advice. I hope to have a play about in the next few day, and see if I can capture anything worthwhile. I will have to play with this outside, and the Other Half has vetoed this shoot inside the house.

[martinsmith99]

Did you ever do this?

I have been helping someone capture dancers. A flash duration of 1/2000+ and no ambient source would freeze subjects leaving out many studio lights and instead relying on a few flash guns I know to be able to obtain this (Nikon SB-28s and Vivitar 285HV in my case).

[NewStuff]

No. I borrowed my flashgun (550EX) to someone to do something similar, and the idiot positioned the flash *under* the balloon. I'm still waiting for payment for it so I can replace it.

[Sevo]

The way this is commonly done is to have a trigger delay circuit and a pair of relays/solenoids that set off both the balloon and the camera/flash at the right interval to each other.