Lencarta Triggers

[tiler65]

The fabled high speed triggers from Lencarta are here.....

http://www.lightingrumours.com/new-...mours+(Lighting+Rumours)&utm_content=FaceBook

 

[tiler65]

Just for the record, these look good but there are grammar errors in the sales pitch and how come there isn't a fan shot of the D700 @1/8000th - surely that would be the comparison you need?

 

[Jerm]

Looking forward to receiving mine, hopefully next week.

I will be testing and will report back.

 

[Richard King]

So you can achieve with a flash trigger, what you cant achieve with a on camera flash? This is so determined by the limitations of the camera and the flash. With flash durations of flash heads ranging from 1/300th second upwards, this will only ever extract very low power from most flash heads / guns, and on cameras which can then have the mirror up, the curtains open at that same time.

There is a big difference to opening the shutter whist the flash is outputting light, and having the flash output its light for less or the equal time the shutter is open. In the first scenario, you do not benefit from the whole output of the flash, in the second scenario, the whole flash output is used

All this is good, but it is useless if it is only possible under a set of settings and circumstances that as a photographer you routinely never go near

If this does work, I expect to see massively reduced utilisation of flash output, and rafts of issues with curtains not being fully open and the like

I have the feeling this method of triggering, in the main treats the flash like a continuous light

 

[Garry Edwards]

Just for the record, these look good but there are grammar errors in the sales pitch and how come there isn't a fan shot of the D700 @1/8000th - surely that would be the comparison you need?

There is, here it is

So you can achieve with a flash trigger, what you cant achieve with a on camera flash?

The ability to use something that isn't an on camera flash. Something with much more power, and that works equally well with every type of modifier

If this does work, I expect to see massively reduced utilisation of flash output, and rafts of issues with curtains not being fully open and the like

The curtains are fully open. 'Light loss' is limited to the difference between flash duration and shutter speed.

I have the feeling this method of triggering, in the main treats the flash like a continuous light

You mean like HSS? No, it doesn't.

 

[tiler65]

There is, here it is

No Garry, I want a shot of the fan with no flash but a d700 and 1/8000th for comparison. This way you will get the benefit of showing what the flash does!

And I quote from the site -

The graphic above proves exactly how well it works. The fan blades are moving so fast that even the 1/8000th shutter speed of a Nikon D700 can't completely freeze the action. As you can see, our new transceiver freezes movement just as well as a shutter speed of 1/8000th with continuous light - the difference in the results of the shot at the normal maximum of 1/250th and the maximum with our transceivers is staggering!

 

[Garry Edwards]

No Garry, I want a shot of the fan with no flash but a d700 and 1/8000th for comparison. This way you will get the benefit of showing what the flash does!

And I quote from the site -

The graphic above proves exactly how well it works. The fan blades are moving so fast that even the 1/8000th shutter speed of a Nikon D700 can't completely freeze the action. As you can see, our new transceiver freezes movement just as well as a shutter speed of 1/8000th with continuous light - the difference in the results of the shot at the normal maximum of 1/250th and the maximum with our transceivers is staggering!

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I was going to include other photos but was told they weren't necessary. I'll dig them out and post them later.
I have 2 photos available, one using continuous lighting with a shutter speed of 1/8000th, and one using continuous lighting with the fan stationary - the only one that is truly sharp, all of the ones with the fan moving are blurred to some extent or other due to the amount of fan movement at this close distance.

 

[boyfalldown]

Gary,

Please forgive the very daft question, and the very un scientific examples I'm going to post.

I just quickly hooked up a pixel king as a manual trigger to an EP600 head and fired it at my bookcase. Power was 1/2 and I used a d3s at f/8, iso 200 for both shots.

The first was shutter speed 1/8000.

no real issues with shutter curtains or anything else other then power loss cause the flash duration is way longer then shutter speed. As you'd expect.

The second 1/250 and as expected because the shutter is now open for longer then the flash duration then its pretty much blown

My point is simply that as exisiting triggers can fire at 1/8000 with only really power loss as an issue, whats the advantage of these by comparison? The technical document for the new lencarta triggers does talk about power loss at very high shutter speeds (as you'd expect)

Will there be any power loss using the new flash transceiver at high shutter speeds?
It depends on both the flash used and on the shutter speed you select, but generally there will be some loss of power because if you set a shutter speed that’s faster than the duration of your flash the shutter will be open for less time than it takes for the flash to discharge all of its power, which means that your shutter won’t be open for long enough to use all the power produced by the flash. For example, if both the flash duration and the shutter speed is 1/1000th sec then there will be NO loss of power, at 1/2000th sec there will be a 1 stop loss, at 1/4000th sec there will be a 2 stop loss and at 1/8000th sec there will be a 3 stop loss. In most situations, although the shutter speed can be set to the maximum, you may want to use it at say 1/2000th or 1/4000th second instead, and so the effective power loss will be less

 

[spxxxx]

Hugh - your exposure is uneven across the frame on the 1/8000 shot - these triggers will remove that

I've ordered some - they will either work and let me sync my Profoto 7b's at a higher speed than I can with PW Mini TT1 (currently using hypersync ) ..... or they won't

If its the former - great ( I currently get about 1/800 - 1/1000 without banding )

If its the latter then I'm sure Lencarta will refund us all ....

I really hope they do work

 

[Cistron]

Hugh - your exposure is uneven across the frame on the 1/8000 shot - these triggers will remove that

I'd really like to know how this is physically possible. The drop-off in intensity is a function of the flash, not the trigger. The only thing that can be adjusted is the timing, however, in order to reduce the fall-off one would have to move further down the tail. Please correct me if I'm wrong, my curiousity has been tickled.

 

[spxxxx]

I'd really like to know how this is physically possible. The drop-off in intensity is a function of the flash, not the trigger. The only thing that can be adjusted is the timing, however, in order to reduce the fall-off one would have to move further down the tail. Please correct me if I'm wrong, my curiousity has been tickled.

Can't answer that - All I want to know is that they work as I've no interest in the hows

 

[The23rdman]

I am very much watching this space.

 

[boyfalldown]

Hugh - your exposure is uneven across the frame on the 1/8000 shot - these triggers will remove that

I've ordered some - they will either work and let me sync my Profoto 7b's at a higher speed than I can with PW Mini TT1 (currently using hypersync ) ..... or they won't

If its the former - great ( I currently get about 1/800 - 1/1000 without banding )

If its the latter then I'm sure Lencarta will refund us all ....

I really hope they do work

It is - you're right, but atleast in part thats cause I used a very quick setup with the light on my right, so some of the fall of is due to the difference in distance from the light across the frame.

Anyway I'd love for them to work as well. I guess I'd just like to know how cause I'm one of those nosey peeps.

 

[HoppyUK]

Gary,

Please forgive the very daft question, and the very un scientific examples I'm going to post.

I just quickly hooked up a pixel king as a manual trigger to an EP600 head and fired it at my bookcase. Power was 1/2 and I used a d3s at f/8, iso 200 for both shots.

The first was shutter speed 1/8000.

no real issues with shutter curtains or anything else other then power loss cause the flash duration is way longer then shutter speed. As you'd expect.

The second 1/250 and as expected because the shutter is now open for longer then the flash duration then its pretty much blown

My point is simply that as exisiting triggers can fire at 1/8000 with only really power loss as an issue, whats the advantage of these by comparison? The technical document for the new lencarta triggers does talk about power loss at very high shutter speeds (as you'd expect)

These new Lencartas triggers will deliver the same result. What you have there is the popular tail-sync hack and the Lencarta is no different, because it cannot be - it can't overcome the problem of the focal plane shutter. This much is proven by the fact that Lencarta now states that it only works with IGBT flash (ie hot-shoe guns) when set to full power, when the IGBT control is inactive.

It works, but the loss of power is dramatic, as your examples show, plus you get darkening of the image from bottom to top, as the tail of the flash fades. Different guns/heads will work better/worse depending on the exact nature of the tail, but the fundamental characterists cannot be changed by any trigger.

 

[spxxxx]

This much is proven by the fact that Lencarta now states that it only works with IGBT flash (ie hot-shoe guns) when set to full power, when the IGBT control is inactive.

Has this just changed as it said it worked on ANY flash

 

[Garry Edwards]

No Garry, I want a shot of the fan with no flash but a d700 and 1/8000th for comparison. This way you will get the benefit of showing what the flash does!

And I quote from the site -

The graphic above proves exactly how well it works. The fan blades are moving so fast that even the 1/8000th shutter speed of a Nikon D700 can't completely freeze the action. As you can see, our new transceiver freezes movement just as well as a shutter speed of 1/8000th with continuous light - the difference in the results of the shot at the normal maximum of 1/250th and the maximum with our transceivers is staggering!

Right, here we are.
I actually took a new set of photos, it's a very quick and dirty test, but it's all I can manage, timewise, for now.

Just for comparison, the first shot is of a static fan. The fan is moving so fast that it's impossible to get a shot with no movement blur at any shutter speed when it's moving.
The second shot is of the fan moving at normal speed, with a shutter speed of 1/8000th. The lighting used for these two shots was a fluorescent continuous light, housed in a softbox. It's pretty bright but of course nowhere near bright enough to allow a shutter speed of 1/8000th at 'normal' ISO so I had to increase the ISO to 5000 for these shots.

The shot on the right is with flash, which happens to be an ElitePro 300. Here, because of the power of the flash, the ISO was reduced to 200 and the aperture was f/13, causing inevitable differences between this shot and the shots with continuous lighting.

Another inevitable difference is that the softboxes used on the flash and on the continuous light shots are of different sizes, but they are close and I've done my best.

I used an unlit white wall for these shots, as the white wall will show up every bit of uneveness. And yes, there is some uneveness, but nowhere near as much as we expect to get when using triggers that rely on tail end synch, where the intensity of the light often reduces by around 4 stops and is accompanied by a massive colour shift as well.

Finally, these shots are straight out of camera with no adjustments of any kind, I just made a composite image and of course reduced the size. The only 'fiddling' that I did on the middle and right shots was to take a large number of shots and discard the ones that ended up with the fan blades in the wrong positions. If you would like to see the original shots from which this composite is made, complete with exif data, just send me a PM with your email address and you'll get them. I may not be able to do it immediately as I'm pretty busy right now, but I will do it

 

[tiler65]

Thanks Garry but doesn't the 3rd shot too show light fall off, like what Hugh experiences (see above) or am I missing something?

 

[HoppyUK]

Has this just changed as it said it worked on ANY flash

It will work with any flash, but only at full power with an IGBT controlled flash, eg hot-shoe gun. At lower power settings, the IGBT circuit reduces the flash duration dramatically - that's how they reduce power. Studio heads works completely differently, and in fact the effective flash duration gets longer as power is reduced.

Tail sync works better with a long flash duration, such as the Lencarta heads Garry has been demonstrating. The shorter the duration, the more pronounced the bottom-to-top fall-off will be.

Edit: I see you're using PW Mini/Flex triggers. They provide two kinds of hypersync that PW calls Peak Hypersync and Tail Hypersync. The Lencarta Mach 1N trigger shows every sign of being the same as the latter, and that's a pretty easy DIY hack that photographers have been using for years - all you need is a HSS/FP-sync enabled hot-shoe gun, an optical slave, and a regular manual radio trigger. Works just the same.

 

[Cris_L]

Ok I'm interested in these but don't have the technical knowledge in this thread.

In a very simple man so need real world examples. lets say a safari lion and a D3. Normal sync is 1/250. What effect would these triggers have before any notable loss in power?

 

[Garry Edwards]

Ok I'm interested in these but don't have the technical knowledge in this thread.

In a very simple man so need real world examples. lets say a safari lion and a D3. Normal sync is 1/250. What effect would these triggers have before any notable loss in power?

I've done some tests, I'll get back to you with exact figures. PM me your email address and I'll send you the actual photos too. - but that may not be for a couple of days, I'm pretty snowed under.

To the other member who sent me a PM - I tried to reply but your inbox is full.

 

[Cris_L]

I've done some tests, I'll get back to you with exact figures. PM me your email address and I'll send you the actual photos too. - but that may not be for a couple of days, I'm pretty snowed under.

To the other member who sent me a PM - I tried to reply but your inbox is full.

Cheers Garry will do

 

[spxxxx]

It will work with any flash, but only at full power with an IGBT controlled flash, eg hot-shoe gun. At lower power settings, the IGBT circuit reduces the flash duration dramatically - that's how they reduce power. Studio heads works completely differently, and in fact the effective flash duration gets longer as power is reduced.

Tail sync works better with a long flash duration, such as the Lencarta heads Garry has been demonstrating. The shorter the duration, the more pronounced the bottom-to-top fall-off will be.

Edit: I see you're using PW Mini/Flex triggers. They provide two kinds of hypersync that PW calls Peak Hypersync and Tail Hypersync. The Lencarta Mach 1N trigger shows every sign of being the same as the latter, and that's a pretty easy DIY hack that photographers have been using for years - all you need is a HSS/FP-sync enabled hot-shoe gun, an optical slave, and a regular manual radio trigger. Works just the same.

Thanks .... at least I'll have something to test them against as the PW ones only allow 1/800 ish before getting the bar showing

 

[HoppyUK]

Thanks .... at least I'll have something to test them against as the PW ones only allow 1/800 ish before getting the bar showing

Not sure what you're saying here, have you got your PWs correctly configured with latest firmware downloaded? Set up procedure can be quite fiddly.

Don't want to go too far off topic but I guess it's all relevant. PW's Peak Hypersync should give you about 1/320sec to 1/400sec on a Nikon D4, as a guess, with no loss of flash power or banding. It only works 100% with hot-shoe guns though, and with studio heads you'll get some loss of power and possibly some uneveness as the durations are generally too long for it to work efficiently. However, I think the PW firmware for Nikon D4 is still only beta right now.

Tail Hypersync is much less camera-critical, and that should work at any shutter speed up to 1/8000sec. You will immediately lose a lot of power though, a couple of stops or more, and that loss increases pro-rata with every stop of shutter speed.

Apart from PWs, you can also get tail hypersync with other off the shelf auto-TTL triggers like the Pixels and new Yongnuo 622, as well as DIY methods. But they are all basically the same and all suffer from a big power loss and uneven illumination. No trigger can change that.

Link about peak and tail sync etc here. This stuff can get very complicated http://wiki.pocketwizard.com/index.php?title=Understanding_HyperSync_and_High_Speed_Sync

 

[spxxxx]

Not sure what you're saying here, have you got your PWs correctly configured with latest firmware downloaded? Set up procedure can be quite fiddly.

Don't want to go too far off topic but I guess it's all relevant. PW's Peak Hypersync should give you about 1/320sec to 1/400sec on a Nikon D4, as a guess, with no loss of flash power or banding. It only works 100% with hot-shoe guns though, and with studio heads you'll get some loss of power and possibly some uneveness as the durations are generally too long for it to work efficiently. However, I think the PW firmware for Nikon D4 is still only beta right now.

Tail Hypersync is much less camera-critical, and that should work at any shutter speed up to 1/8000sec. You will immediately lose a lot of power though, a couple of stops or more, and that loss increases pro-rata with every stop of shutter speed.

Apart from PWs, you can also get tail hypersync with other off the shelf auto-TTL triggers like the Pixels and new Yongnuo 622, as well as DIY methods. But they are all basically the same and all suffer from a big power loss and uneven illumination. No trigger can change that.

Link about peak and tail sync etc here. This stuff can get very complicated http://wiki.pocketwizard.com/index.php?title=Understanding_HyperSync_and_High_Speed_Sync

No I have the PW's set up and can get 1/800ish clean no banding with no noticeable loss of power - so I'll be looking at these being better

 

[Richard King]

So in summary, you need the "right sort of flash", and don't expect even illumination / colour temp etc. at higher shutter speeds, as the mechanics of the shutter and the flash duration are all working against you

The reason most want a radio trigger is because they are not doing close up macro work... In the real world, our flashes are used to fill rooms with light, or light larger objects etc. etc.

 

[Michael Sewell]

Very quick and dirty test three weeks ago.
jpegs straight from lightroom with no "fiddling" (import raw files to LR and hit export)
Raw files included.
ReadMe.txt saying pretty much the same.
This file will be available until the 5th October.
I'm due to do a more constructive test shoot this Wednesday or Thursday.

 

[Tony101]

I'll also follow the forthcoming reviews with interest.

But speed reading this (and other) threads suggests that these triggers perform best with strobes that have long flash durations, which means they may well be of limited use for me using Elinchrom Ranger RX Speed packs with 'A' flash heads. I hope I'm wrong.

Cheers,
Tony

 

[Michael Sewell]

I'll also follow the forthcoming reviews with interest.

But speed reading this (and other) threads suggests that these triggers perform best with strobes that have long flash durations, which means they may well be of limited use for me using Elinchrom Ranger RX Speed packs with 'A' flash heads. I hope I'm wrong.

Cheers,
Tony

TBH Tony, the reverse is true

 

[HoppyUK]

TBH Tony, the reverse is true

Can you explain that Michael? Normally, the shorter the flash duration means the peak is higher and steeper, therefore the fall-off down the tail is inevitably steeper too, resulting in greater variation in exposure from top to bottom of the frame.

BTW, I'm not sure what your link above is showing. All I can see is an empty studio and a darkened window. What are the flash details?

The tests I would like to see are with a short duration flash, like one of the Elinchrom A heads or a hot-shoe gun. All the Lencarta heads have quite long flash durations. Comparisons showing evenness of illumination and also at normal x-sync speed to show the loss of brightness, like Hugh's pictures above.

 

[tiler65]

To Hoppy....1 of the shots is 1/8000th.....but I do agree that it is a little confusing, Michael

 

[nigelbb]

I just noticed this footnote on the Lencarta website which I didn't notice yesterday:-

* Whether or not there is any loss of effective power depends on both the flash used and on the shutter speed selected, but generally there will be some loss of power because if you set a shutter speed that's faster than the duration of your flash then the shutter will be open for less time than it takes for the flash to discharge all of its power, which means that your shutter won't be open for long enough to use all the power produced by the flash.

So to use full power with these triggers it needs to be a very short duration flash. According to the website the Smartflash 200 used for the demo photos has a flash duration of 1/1800th sec which surely means that if you use a 1/8000 shutter speed as in the demo photos there must be a very large loss of effective power (perhaps 75% reduction?). That's a bit more than just 'some' loss of power.

 

[Michael Sewell]

All the shots are ISO200 at 1/8000th sec and f9 and early afternoon (Somewhere around 1330hrs (ish)
The readme file says something about it. (ok, it doesn't say much!)
Basically, this was a quick test before I had to go out on location, and I wanted to check the 1/8000th claim and see if it works.
The fleece on the stand was shot at 1/8000th sec F9 ISO200 and two Elite Pros at full power
Same for the second shot,(Fleece closeup) which was for me to check any colour shift etc.
The third image is just a shot at the window with the Elite Pros turned off, to give an idea as to how well the same settings affected the ambient.

Richard, No argument at all considering your explanation of the shorter flash duration. Only it doesn't apply with regards to full power, particularly when the shutter speed means the exposure happens within the body of the main peak.
The slower the flash duration, then unfortunately, the more power is actually wasted post exposure.
IE: For arguments sake, lets say a given head has a flash duration of 1/2000th sec at full power. Great, I can now shoot up to 1/2000th of a sec with no synch consequences regarding shutter shadow, which is a hell of a lot better than 1/250th when wanting to drop the ambient by one stop in sunlight.
However, I can shoot at 1/4000th sec and use half the available light output from the head, which means I lose one stop of light, which can be compensated for in the chosen aperture. 1/8000th sec would mean I would lose two stops etc.
Garry has measured the light drop and found it to be perfectly linear, which means it's predictable and usable.

Forgive the short post above, but some folks felt I was posting too often within this particular forum, which I felt reflected badly on Lencarta, so I stopped.
Well, until I felt the need to post the above.


Oh, and then this one too.

 

[HoppyUK]

Micheal, it doesn't work like that. There is some serious misunderstanding of the physics invloved here, and misrepresentation on the Lencarta website.

This trigger has no effect on how the flash unit outputs light. It cannot, and neither can it do anything about the action of the camera's focal plane shutter. I think these are given, but it's as well to restate a few facts.

All this trigger does, and all it can do, is alter the moment at which the flash is fired, and therefore the synchronisation timing of the shutter. That then decides which part of the flash pulse is captured by the shutter.

As I've explained before, and on the other current thread (here, post #119 in particular http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=408997&page=4 ) quoted t.5 flash durations are irrelevant. The deciding factors here are the total flash burn time, and the full cycle time of the shutter, and in very round numbers they're both typically in the region of 3-5ms (roughly 1/300sec to 1/200sec). It is impossible for the shutter to complete its full cycle within the t.5 time, or anywhere near it.

The bottom line is that this trigger uses the tail-sync technique, and that is nothing new, or unique to Lencarta. It works, no doubt about that, and the flash will sync at any shutter speed. But the inevitable consequence is that most of the light is wasted, and that loss doubles with every stop of increased shutter speed. Meanwhile, as the tail of the flash fades, there is uneven exposure down the frame. Hugh's images in post #8 on the previous page show the effect.

The only question is, whether or not the downsides of the basic physics of all this, are outweighed by the benefit of being able to sync at high shutter speeds. Traditionally, the answer has been no - which is why high speed sync was invented, and why other work-around methods are used for synching flash in bright daylight. But we shall see - Garry has kindly offered to send me a set to try.

 

[Michael Sewell]

Richard, I don't believe I said it alters the flash output at all. That really would be quite absurd to say the least.
I did say it uses either all or part of the light output.
I also said that when it's using part of the output, the rest is wasted.

 

[Michael Sewell]

Edit: I realised Richard had downloaded the file, because he had mentioned it earlier.
My mistake.

 

[HoppyUK]

Richard, I don't believe I said it alters the flash output at all. That really would be quite absurd to say the least.
I did say it uses either all or part of the light output.
I also said that when it's using part of the output, the rest is wasted.

It's this quote from your previous post above that appears to be a misunderstanding of what's actually happening: "...when the shutter speed means the exposure happens within the body of the main peak." This is impossible, given that the peak is so brief, ie a t.5 time of 1/2000sec, and the shutter is taking around 4ms to cover the frame.

Also, this is wrong: "The slower the flash duration, then unfortunately, the more power is actually wasted post exposure." No, the longer the flash duration, the more light the shutter is able to capture within its full cycle time. Clear evidence is demonstated by the fact that the Mach trigger doesn't work with IGBT flash at anything less than full power, when the flash duration genuinely is very short.

Lencarta needs to get real about how this trigger works, the physics involved, and its limitations. As I've said, the fact that it will sync at high shutter speeds is not in question, but it does use the tail sync method and that is nothing new. Its shortcomings are equally well known.

 

[Garry Edwards]

No, the new triggers don't affect the flash output in any way.

There are a lot of flash triggers that can be used at any shutter speed for Canon cameras, that's because the shutters on Canon cameras are very simple, or at least compared to Nikon cameras. The results I've seen from this type of trigger on Canon cameras haven't impressed me, although of course there are so many now available for Canon that I haven't seen results from all of them, and I haven't tested any of them as I don't have a Canon and don't even know anyone who has one.

The situation with Nikon cameras is very different. The electronics of Nikon shutters are very complex and Nikon have made it as difficult as they could to decipher the computer interrogation of how the shutter works - can't blame them for doing that...
I'm not an electronics engineer and I don't fully understand how it works, and if I did fully understand it then I wouldn't want to make it easy for competitors to work out how to copy it anyway. It has all been explained to me, but there were difficulties.

The main difficulty was with language. I had an interpreter but he didn't speak the first language spoken by the engineer. The engineer has a fairly good grasp of another language that the interpreter does speak but as I understand it isn't exactly fluent in it, so they spoke in their best common language, which was then translated for my benefit into English. But the interpreter isn't an electronics engineer and come to that isn't a photographer either, so I have had to rely on his interpretation of a pretty technical subject into English...

My understanding is that the trigger communicates directly with the shutter and effects its behaviour. I found this pretty incredible but I was impressed by the demo by the engineer, and so did my own tests, both indoors and outdoors, and was even more impressed by the practical effects of what this trigger did.

There were a lot more talks.

I've had 1 pair of these triggers for (I think) 2 weeks now. I've used them on every shot I've taken in the studio, but haven't had to use them for any high shutter speed stuff, that isn't the type of photography that I do on an every day basis.

What I have done with them is to test them by photographing moving fans, with every different make and model of flash head I can get my hands on, at every shutter speed from 1/250th to 1/8000th. That's a laborious process. Sometimes, just sometimes, I can press the button and the fan blades will be pretty much in the right place, but typically it will take 12-15 shots each time. Although the ones with the fan blades in the wrong places have all been deleted, they do have a function - they show consistency of exposure, shot to shot.

Yes, there is some uneveness of exposure, the amount of uneveness is a function of the flash used, it does vary, and it is visible on the shots of the fan. But I feel that it is far better than similar shots that I've seen with other radio triggers used on Canon cameras, and I also feel that real-world shots taken with these triggers will be perfectly acceptable, and the busier the shot, the less likely anyone is to notice any uneveness of exposure that does exist. I feel that Michael's test shot, posted above, of part of one of his studios proves this pretty well, and that isn't even a busy shot.

Michael bought a few of these triggers, he has had an opportunity to use them for shots where they help his work, and he is planning to do a shoot next week that should answer all of the questions, once and for all.

At the end of the day, people either buy them or they don't. They are expensive compared to many other radio triggers and I can't see the price going down because they are costing a lot to make and they don't carry much profit. If people do buy them they have 30 days to decide whether they are happy with them or not, and if they aren't happy with them then they can just return them for a full refund.

What I or anyone else thinks about them is neither here nor there

 

[HoppyUK]

No, the new triggers don't affect the flash output in any way.

There are a lot of flash triggers that can be used at any shutter speed for Canon cameras, that's because the shutters on Canon cameras are very simple, or at least compared to Nikon cameras. The results I've seen from this type of trigger on Canon cameras haven't impressed me, although of course there are so many now available for Canon that I haven't seen results from all of them, and I haven't tested any of them as I don't have a Canon and don't even know anyone who has one.

The situation with Nikon cameras is very different. The electronics of Nikon shutters are very complex and Nikon have made it as difficult as they could to decipher the computer interrogation of how the shutter works - can't blame them for doing that...
I'm not an electronics engineer and I don't fully understand how it works, and if I did fully understand it then I wouldn't want to make it easy for competitors to work out how to copy it anyway. It has all been explained to me, but there were difficulties.

The main difficulty was with language. I had an interpreter but he didn't speak the first language spoken by the engineer. The engineer has a fairly good grasp of another language that the interpreter does speak but as I understand it isn't exactly fluent in it, so they spoke in their best common language, which was then translated for my benefit into English. But the interpreter isn't an electronics engineer and come to that isn't a photographer either, so I have had to rely on his interpretation of a pretty technical subject into English...

My understanding is that the trigger communicates directly with the shutter and effects its behaviour. I found this pretty incredible but I was impressed by the demo by the engineer, and so did my own tests, both indoors and outdoors, and was even more impressed by the practical effects of what this trigger did.

There were a lot more talks.

I've had 1 pair of these triggers for (I think) 2 weeks now. I've used them on every shot I've taken in the studio, but haven't had to use them for any high shutter speed stuff, that isn't the type of photography that I do on an every day basis.

What I have done with them is to test them by photographing moving fans, with every different make and model of flash head I can get my hands on, at every shutter speed from 1/250th to 1/8000th. That's a laborious process. Sometimes, just sometimes, I can press the button and the fan blades will be pretty much in the right place, but typically it will take 12-15 shots each time. Although the ones with the fan blades in the wrong places have all been deleted, they do have a function - they show consistency of exposure, shot to shot.

Yes, there is some uneveness of exposure, the amount of uneveness is a function of the flash used, it does vary, and it is visible on the shots of the fan. But I feel that it is far better than similar shots that I've seen with other radio triggers used on Canon cameras, and I also feel that real-world shots taken with these triggers will be perfectly acceptable, and the busier the shot, the less likely anyone is to notice any uneveness of exposure that does exist. I feel that Michael's test shot, posted above, of part of one of his studios proves this pretty well, and that isn't even a busy shot.

Michael bought a few of these triggers, he has had an opportunity to use them for shots where they help his work, and he is planning to do a shoot next week that should answer all of the questions, once and for all.

At the end of the day, people either buy them or they don't. They are expensive compared to many other radio triggers and I can't see the price going down because they are costing a lot to make and they don't carry much profit. If people do buy them they have 30 days to decide whether they are happy with them or not, and if they aren't happy with them then they can just return them for a full refund.

What I or anyone else thinks about them is neither here nor there

Garry, this quote: "My understanding is that the trigger communicates directly with the shutter and effects its behaviour." You're suggesting that a simple device attached to the hot-shoe can do this? And do what exactly? Somehow turbocharge the shutter in a way that a) neither Nikon, nor any other manufacturer, has yet thought of, and b) is physically impossible anyway? Something has got seriously lost in the translation.

I would respectfully suggest that this trigger does nothing particularly clever or new, and merely extracts the high speed sync/FP sync firing signal from the hot-shoe, that is issued momentarily before the first shutter curtain opens. It then applies an appropriate delay so that the post-peak of the flash pulse coincides with the opening of the first curtain. In this way, as the shutter scans down the frame, it runs in sync with the fading tail of the flash.

It's tail-sync, pure and simple, and nothing new. That works of course, and has its uses, but it also has well documented drawbacks and disadvantages.

PS, don't shoot the messenger

 

[Richard King]

I'm with Hoppy on this one (as per my first post) There is a reason I kept a D70!

 

[JonathanRyan]

Garry, this quote: "My understanding is that the trigger communicates directly with the shutter and effects its behaviour." You're suggesting that a simple device attached to the hot-shoe can do this?

There's no logical reason why this couldn't happen. The interface between hotshoe and (say) SB900 is pretty complex. For one thing this is how you do firmware updates to the flashguns. For another, the camera definitely knows what kind of flash it has attached. The triggers I've tested with similar properties even fool the exif into thinking there's a speed light firing.

But it seems unlikely that Nikon would miss something like this. I guess it would also raise the possibility of Nikon tweaking their camera firmware to stop this trigger working.

Either way, if the independent reviews prove favourable I hope you have your IP lawyers on standby. It's sad state of the photography industry that if somebody invented something revolutionary like this then eBay would be flooded with 30 quid clones in a couple of weeks