Quote:
Originally Posted by PerformanceImagery
I tend to think of dragging the shutter as setting the shutter speed slower then what you metered (for a "correct" exposure). It's used to bring the ambeint light for the background into the photo if the fash would normally overpower it (or not be picked up due to the higher metered shutter speed).
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Marty's original statement is valid. Keep in mind several concepts. "Dragging" the shutter is a term used when using strobes. You must always set a shutter speed at the sync speed for use with strobes, or lower. So if you drag the shutter you are always setting the speed lower than the sync speed.
When you use a flash meter with strobes, it returns a fstop to use. It doesn't return a shutterspeed, hence you are not using a shutter speed lower than the one metered, because none was metered in the case of a flash meter.
You can use any shutter speed, since the strobes will freeze the action and are, in effect the shutter speed. Then, if you want to include ambient light and allow it to effect the scene, you take a meter reading of the ambient light where your meter is already set to the fstop chosen for the strobes. The meter will then give you the shutter speed and if you use that shutter speed then you'll usually be dragging the shutter (and in this case the fstop and strobe speed will control the exposure of the subject and the shutterspeed and fstop will control the exposure of the ambient light). We are of course ignoring the other possibility of the ambient light being more powerful than the strobes, but that is another ball game all together.
Cheers,
rfs