Capturing the Fleeting Moment – Łukasz Skwiot Tests the Pulse Pro X

The Pulse Pro X series consists of heads offering high efficiency, fast recycling and very short flash durations. Łukasz Skwiot and Angelika Wiatr tested them for us in practice. Together with a friendly Taekwon-do club, we decided to go a step further and created a session designed to show power and dynamics.

##### What were we aiming for?

A real “WOW” effect! Angelika Wiatr and I often work together on sports shoots. This time we wanted to create something we had not seen before. Together with a friendly Taekwon-do club (a Korean martial art), we decided to go one step further. Classic fighting poses can be impressive to people who know the sport, but they do not really show what it is about. So we created a session that revealed the power and dynamics of kicks and strikes.

##### How?

With the help of an Olympus E-M1 Mark II, which offers an excellent burst mode and fast autofocus. The most important element, however, was the choice of lighting. I was looking for lights with two properties: an extremely short flash duration and a very efficient burst mode. We wanted to freeze individual water droplets completely and capture the instant of the largest splash.

Standard studio lights offer flash durations around 1/500–1/1000 s. Quadralite Pulse Pro X lights achieve an impressive 1/35086 s in the 400 Ws version and 1/28984 s in the 600 Ws model. They can also fire at up to 10 frames per second, making them a perfect complement to the Olympus E-M1 II and keeping up with it reliably. Black frames caused by a missed flash are a thing of the past.

##### My choice?

The lighting setup was quite simple and consisted of three Quadralite Pulse Pro X units. The main light was a 600 Ws model. The other two (600 and 400 Ws) acted as rim lights, illuminating every drop of water from behind. What about modifiers? I chose reflectors to get hard, contrasty light without sacrificing much output (softboxes create softer light but absorb a considerable amount). The main light had a large 45 cm silver reflector, while the other two used 18 cm reflectors.

A major advantage of these lights is the built-in Navigator X receiver. It allowed me to change the power of each unit remotely and dynamically. This speeds up the work considerably, and it also meant I was not tripping over cables lying around the floor (anyone who has tried to cheat gravity will know what I mean ;-).

##### Problems?

The biggest problem was… water. The splashes were huge! There is no way to control them, and the water level in the studio gradually rose to an alarming point. Plastic sheeting, mops and buckets saved the situation. We had to work hard to keep everything under control. We did not want cold water reaching a hot flash tube, which could have produced a rather unpleasant situation (as if running around with a mop were pleasant). Every Pulse Pro X has a flash-tube cover, but on the main light, which was directly in the line of fire – or rather water – we added a thin textile diffuser for extra protection. We also avoided any contact between cables and water at all costs (safety first!).

##### The result?

Judge for yourselves! We achieved perfectly frozen water droplets thanks to the extremely fast lights and very short flash duration. Ten frames per second, consistent parameters (color temperature and output) over repeated bursts and highly efficient cooling without overheating are the key advantages that make Quadralite Pulse Pro X lights ideal companions for sports sessions in the studio.

P.S. Nobody was harmed during the session ?

Text and photographs: Łukasz Skwiot, Angelika Wiatr