I stumbled across this video of photographer Dave Black showing just how far you can go with off-camera flash. He regularly attaches up to 8 flashes (yes 8!) to a tripod to shoot sports photography.
Similar photos could be achieved with just one flash, so why so many? Canon's 580EX has an effective range of 58 metres whether you use one or fifteen.The real need for all this light is the shutter speed at which he shoots. Taking advantage of high-speed sync Dave is able to shoot at 1/4000 of a second with really long lenses! Fast enough to freeze the action in any sport and cut out almost all ambient light (if he wants). The cluster formation also softens the light by increasing the size of the light source too.
Of course he could just use more powerful lighting! This would require a bigger battery pack and would make the set-up a bit more cumbersome. However, it might look a bit strange but I will have to give this a go with a three flash arrangement. When I get my Pocket Wizard back that is.
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