DA16-45, 1/6th, f5:6, off-camera flash with snoot and LED spot for ambient.

He may have tweaked them, but HDR will do exactly this on its own.

I like them. I don't think they are overcooked. They aren't meant to be real, they are illustrative and very effective.

Wow! thanks for digging Jonathan, that's very interesting.
I think I will have to set up a test and measure the blur with different lights and settings.

with the Metz I have been trying to get it as close as possible so I can fire it at as low power as poss. but it was still unable to stop something dropped from 6 inches.

Looks like doing the same with the studio lights was a mistake. (still can't quite get my head round that! )

edit: I think an object dropped 12cm will travel 1 mm during a 1/300th sec. flash exposure.

I like the BW versions. particularly the last.
But I would forget the flash, leave her where she is and get in front of her so one side of her face is lit by the window. You could experiment with a polystyrene or paper reflector on the other side to fill in the shadows or go for a Rembrandt-style shadow down one side.
Either way, don't be afraid to get in close and focus on the eyes.
also, make sure the background is plain, or appropriate (no window frames sticking out of her head).

Actually I had noticed my last two seemed sharpened, I thought it was because they were uploaded from iPhoto.

Hmmm. and sRGB - that's a thought - I'll test that too. I keep forgetting, and do everything in AdobeRGB.

Any tips for maintaining quality when uploading to Facebook?
I resize to 604px on the longest side which seems to be their max.
But I haven't established what their KB limit is and whether they re-compress even if you are under their limit?

There are rumours that uploading from a Mac reduces quality too (something about iPhoto or Safari), but I haven't tested that.

I have the Metz, and love it. it's so powerful and versatile. I've lit up factory ceilings and 2mm insects equally well.
I haven't used anything else so can't offer a comparison.
I find the menu system long-winded but they might all be like that.

auto mode (when appropriate) is virtually infallible.

It's on the camera (or attached remotely) almost constantly it seems sometimes.

Hell of a lot of money tho'. I use it manually at least 50% of the time and sometimes wonder if I should have bought a old manual flash and a nice lens instead. But no regrets really.

this picture seems to suggest that your monitor is not displaying the dark end very well, or the ambient light falling on your monitor is too great. Either that or you aren't bothered by noisy backgrounds.

I don't mean this harshly Paul, I am am genuinely curious to know if you can see it and are just not concerned (sometime noise is good).

Personally, I haven't found an affordable system, so I go by trial an error.

Nice, gruesome picture by the way. My daughter's worse nightmare - lots of little moving things

Thanks Ken that's interesting. Makes sense.

I'd rather not upload an example, but I'll do some more tests and make sure no stray light is finding it's way into the water droplets (oops! what a giveaway...)

I'll post some results if I get some time.

Cheers

Thanks for the response guys.
Matt, yes the ambient was essentially dark, everything manual.

My question tho is more about whether some flashes are slower than others for a given output.
My mains flashes seem to be very slow, although it's possible some ambient crept in on those tho I guess (I'll test that again sometime).

BTW, what's the real world difference between trailing curtain and slow shutter? Apart from the direction of the blur?