How does flash photography ‘stop motion’ (more than ambient light)

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I don’t understand how using a flash can freeze motion better than ambient light. In the end, isn’t it all just light hitting the sensor?

I don’t understand why it would do this. I mean it’s not necessarily like the camera knows and is like “Oh they’re using flash, I’ll be nice and give them a sharper picture’. I mean obviously they don’t think like that, but all in all it’s light luminating the subject and hitting the sensor, why does something like the source of the light affect how much motion can appear in your image?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

With no flash the image is exposed by the duration of the shutter’s speed, typically in fractions of a second. With flash the exposure is by the duration of the flash. With a Xenon flash tube the duration is typically fifty to a hundred microseconds, an old school flash bulb shines for milliseconds.

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