How do you max out your flash sync speed?

bomberman

bomberman

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I know there are a few options on how to do this but i was wondering what the most popular method on here is. I'd be shooting with a 400d and 430ex II (not purchased the flash yet) looking to get sync speeds of 1/800 for mountain biking photography.

Tell me it's possible :)
 
bomberman said:
I know there are a few options on how to do this but i was wondering what the most popular method on here is. I'd be shooting with a 400d and 430ex II (not purchased the flash yet) looking to get sync speeds of 1/800 for mountain biking photography.

Tell me it's possible :)
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Not if you want the flash off camera, unless you have £500 or so to spend on a set of PW TTL triggers....
 
the flash duration will be faster than 1/1000 though to freeze the action. The 1/200 is to allow for the passing of the shutter curtains

you will need low ish light or a v small aperture to work in the daylight at 1/200 but it is perfectly possible
 
I want the flash off-cam and i'll be wanting to work in daylight. why do i need PW triggers? won't rf-60..... that you sell be ok?

1/200 won't freeze a mountain bike travelling at 40mph!
 
bomberman said:
I want the flash off-cam and i'll be wanting to work in daylight. why do i need PW triggers?

1/200 won't freeze a mountain bike travelling at 40mph!
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Your flash will it not the shutter speed but the flash speed which is very fast I would have thought you be better off with the 58EX II more power for this.
 
chaz, that aside i have read that shutter speeds over 1/200 will cause incomplete flash exposure (not all the chip will be exposed to the flash light)

how do sports togs using off-cam flash get around this?
 
bomberman said:
I want the flash off-cam and i'll be wanting to work in daylight. why do i need PW triggers? won't rf-60..... that you sell be ok?

1/200 won't freeze a mountain bike travelling at 40mph!
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As David says, it's the flash that freezes action, not the shutter speed, so you wouldn't really need 1/800 anyway.....
 
OK thanks. just sussing things out before i make any kit decisions. I've read the nikon D50 and D70 have electronic shutters so can get really high flash sync but i'm not using either camera. Also I've read about exposing 2/3 or 1/2 of the image with flash, turning the cam upside down to darken the sky etc etc. Another one i've heard about is a setting on speedlites which uses a strobe pulse. "high sync " mode or something like that.
 
david1701 said:
the flash duration will be faster than 1/1000 though to freeze the action. The 1/200 is to allow for the passing of the shutter curtains

you will need low ish light or a v small aperture to work in the daylight at 1/200 but it is perfectly possible
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that means everything flash lit has an equivelant shutter speed of 1/1000 or higher, which freezes most stuff the sync speed is just for background light
 
OK but i would quite like to be using larger apertures with off-cam flash to give the subject pop and blur the background so will a max sync speed of 1/200 mean the shot becomes overexposed? particularly in daylight?
 
Well you can do it with Nikon in HSS mode and not just using CLS. You can trick the system to work with a good set of radio triggers but you do need a HSS compatible flash on camera. You do end up eating batteries in the driven flash as it has to be at full power.

Mart
 
bomberman said:
OK but i would quite like to be using larger apertures with off-cam flash to give the subject pop and blur the background so will a max sync speed of 1/200 mean the shot becomes overexposed? particularly in daylight?
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one way to do this is to light it up so everything looks great at say f8 iso100, then put on a few stops of ND say a 3 stop filter to give you f2.8, its that or shoot when the ambient is darker.

Also the more power you throw at the flash the longer the recycle will take ;)
 
Maybe you should do some reading Chaz! By turning the camera upside-down you have the missing part of the image at the top instead of the bottom.
 
sammyd56 said:
Maybe you should do some reading Chaz! By turning the camera upside-down you have the missing part of the image at the top instead of the bottom.
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There is nothing missing when upside down May be I get a sky hook to replace my tripod
 
bomberman said:
exactly sammy! well, missing part of the flash..
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You have been talking off camera flash, no one has said about the flash under the camera.
Any how all this is doing is pointing the flash where you want it nothing to do with inverting the camera
 
it dosent matter where the flash is its about where the subject is in the frame. If you use shutter speeds over 1/200 (or whatever your max sync speed is) then a dark band appears in the lower part of the frame. you can get round this by inverting your camera which throws the lesser exposed part into the sky
 
If you want to use off camera flash with a shutter speed faster than your highest sync speed then I think you have two options.

The ST-E2 can do it but it doesn't work great outdoors in bright sunlight and the range and direction is limited. So that leaves you with one option...

PocketWizards, which are expensive but awesome (or so I read, I don't have them), support HSS and have huge range.

The RF602's that FITP sells (which I have) are great for the money but they are pretty basic.
 
just had an email from a MTB photographer i found on pinkbike.com who recommends the radiopopper triggers - and they're not expensive. result!
 
You don't need to use a shutter speed faster than 1/250 for MTB stuff anyway. They just don't move fast enough...
 
Glad I caught this one then! :)

I sent mine back because it would not even work as a basic trigger.

I have a pair of plus II's which are awesome but don't do TTL or HSS, just basic "NOW" triggers that tell the flash when to fire. Flash is used purely on manual.

So I bought a miniTT1 to fire the plusII's as a pair since I have 2 EX580's.............except it didn't. It failed on a shoot where I had to go back to the plusII's and I tested it at home and found that at a mere 15ft it failed in basic triggering mode a startling 53%.

I know others who have had no problem with MiniTT1 and Flex and I also know others who have had nothing but problems and are now out of warranty! So as soon as mine didn't work it went straight back the next week and I'll stick to PlusII's and good old manual. I had planned to add a flex or two over time but until it's sorted as a product, I'm staying well clear!
 
I have the flex / mini combo and problems with them :( TBH I'm not sure where to go with this but:

  1. As basic triggers once they're talking I get a 100% hit rate.
  2. HSS Synch is hit and miss to say the least
  3. ETTL is also hit and miss
  4. Not even tested at any real distances yet!

I plan to give these a serious test over the coming weekend after thoroughly going through the manual (Thanks Ali :thumbs:) and if I'm not happy they will be going back :'(

Also, I'm not happy with the cost of cables for these :( The genuine cable to remote fire the camera is £125 HTF do they get that price? :thumbsdown: £15 on Ebay
:thumbs:
 
Splog said:
Also, I'm not happy with the cost of cables for these :( The genuine cable to remote fire the camera is £125 HTF do they get that price? :thumbsdown: £15 on Ebay
:thumbs:
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I can only imagine that these cables are solid gold. Not very practical, but at least they're worth the money :cuckoo:

Would be interested to hear how you get on with the Mini's. Doesn't sound promising! :gag:

:lol:
 
Oli R C said:
I can only imagine that these cables are solid gold. Not very practical, but at least they're worth the money :cuckoo:

Would be interested to hear how you get on with the Mini's. Doesn't sound promising! :gag:

:lol:
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:lol: Yeah! Solid plastic gold :cuckoo: Even f they were real gold? they still couldn't justify £125.00 :(
 
I'm not sure what to make of this thread! :thinking:

Bomberman, the only way to get x-sync at 1/800sec is with High Speed Sync enabled. Your 430EX can do this, it can even do it remotely via E-TTL (it's second-curtain sync you can't do remotely) using a 580EX or ST-E2 as Master but you will almost certainly not have enough power working this way. HSS gobbles power and cuts flash range (as distinct to triggering range) quite dramatically. Pocket Wizards or Radio Poppers will not help with this, not even the new E-TTL jobbies.

However, you should be able to do it at normal x-sync speed because, as said above, it is the flash duration that becomes your effective shutter speed and that will always be shorter than 1/800sec, more like 1/2000sec or even less depending on the power required.

Your normal max x-sync speed is 1/200sec and this is retained using E-TTL remotely and with the top end radio triggers like Pocket Wizards. Yongnuo RF-602 and other cheaper triggers cause a delay though, and you'll need to use 1/125sec with them. This might not be a problem though, as you'll still get the very short flash duration.

You won't be able to work in bright daylight though, not without getting ghosting. Only HSS can get around that and as I say I'm pretty sure you won't have enough power for that with just one 430EX. On the other hand, I've seen plenty of biking pictures shot like this with visible ghosting and I think it adds to the effect. You'll need to try it. There is also the clever Hypersync mode on the new Pocket Wizards (for a price, and if you can get them to work) that increases the x-sync speed but you will only go up from 1/200sec to 1/350sec or so at best; it helps, but will only reduce the ghosting a bit, not eliminate it.
 
bomberman said:
it dosent matter where the flash is its about where the subject is in the frame. If you use shutter speeds over 1/200 (or whatever your max sync speed is) then a dark band appears in the lower part of the frame. you can get round this by inverting your camera which throws the lesser exposed part into the sky
Click to expand...

You mean use half of the frame. Well you have full with so will have to crop it so ending up with ¼ of the sensor to me that’s not sound like a good thing to do.
 
Whats the fuss about?

the flash will freeze the motion, the flash duration is what you need to worry about
your shutter speed will be essentially just be used to balance how much ambient light is in the mix

I assume you cant illuminate the whole scene with flash, so you need to deal with lighting the subject (flash) and the background (sunlight) separatally

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Camera-Shutter-Speeds-explained-4794

You might want a slower shutter speed and flash - pan the camera, get the neat background blur and a pinsharp frozen cyclist

Balancing flash with ambient:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-balancing-flash-and.html

On cycling:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/15/tom-jenkins-cycling-photo-tips
 
Thanks everyone for the advice.

You mean use half of the frame. Well you have full with so will have to crop it so ending up with ¼ of the sensor to me that’s not sound like a good thing to do.
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chaz you have got the wrong end of the stick and i have no idea what you are talking about! maybe start a new thread to discuss it?
 
bomberman said:
Thanks everyone for the advice.

chaz you have got the wrong end of the stick and i have no idea what you are talking about! maybe start a new thread to discuss it?
Click to expand...

He means, I think, that if you use this half-baked technique for doubling the x-sync speed, you will only have half the frame correctly exposed by the flash. Therefore, if you are to maintain the aspect ratio of the original frame then you are going to have to crop to an area one quarter of the sensor.

Holding the camera normally (ie not upside down :eek: ) that would be either the top left or top right corner.
 
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