Real Hypersync

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mike weeks

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Been playing with Lencarta Li-Ion Safari and Pocket Wizard TT1 / TT5 and have tested to 1/8000, an example at 1/1000
DSC_3487edited.jpg
- what other triggers are people using for hypersync and not interested in speedlights.

Mike
 
mike weeks said:
Been playing with Lencarta Li-Ion Safari and Pocket Wizard TT1 / TT5 and have tested to 1/8000, an example at 1/1000 - what other triggers are people using for hypersync and not interested in speedlights.

Mike
Click to expand...

Have used pw tt1 to 1/8000 with bowens Gemini but above about 1/1000 you start to get progressively worse fall off across the frame
 
Nice shot Mike :thumbs:

You're using Tail Hypersync (as opposed to Peak Hypersync, in PW's parlance) and there are a few triggers that allow that to be done easily, eg YN 622, or of course Lencarta's dedicated Mach tigger. You can also do a fairly simple hack, using any HSS enabled gun, a basic manual trigger, and an optical slave.

Results are variable though. The advantage of the PW Mini/Flex is that the exact timing moment can be adjusted to maximise brightness and minimise fall-off, but the key component is a longish duration flash head, like the Lencarta Li-on.
 
Mike I'd be interested to know if you were getting the same power from your flash, having upped the sync speed?

As far as I can tell with the hyper sync, or any faster sync method, you loose the equivalent or more power from your flash unit. In this shot (very nice BTW) you've gained two stops of shutter speed but has your flash dropped two stops of output?
 
treeman said:
Mike I'd be interested to know if you were getting the same power from your flash, having upped the sync speed?

As far as I can tell with the hyper sync, or any faster sync method, you loose the equivalent or more power from your flash unit. In this shot (very nice BTW) you've gained two stops of shutter speed but has your flash dropped two stops of output?
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With either High-Speed Sync or Tail Hypersync, the flash is effectively working like continuous/ambient light.

Just by using either method, you'll lose maybe two stops of power (because most of the light falls on the shutter curtains and is wasted) and that loss will increase in direct proportion as shutter speed is raised.

However, if the flash is bright enough to overcome the ambient in the first place, then broadly speaking it will stay that way at higher shutter speeds because the ambient is also reduced proportionally at the same time. See Kris' link.
 
HoppyUK said:
With either High-Speed Sync or Tail Hypersync, the flash is effectively working like continuous/ambient light.

Just by using either method, you'll lose maybe two stops of power (because most of the light falls on the shutter curtains and is wasted) and that loss will increase in direct proportion as shutter speed is raised.

However, if the flash is bright enough to overcome the ambient in the first place, then broadly speaking it will stay that way at higher shutter speeds because the ambient is also reduced proportionally at the same time. See Kris' link.
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So the above image could have been obtained by shooting at 250th sec, putting on a 2 stop ND filter, to counter the affect on aperture and using all of the flash power. So same dark sky, same correctly exposed horse, same aperture.

Or am I missing something?

If you can shoot at two stops higher shutter speed, but loose two stops of light power, surely one negates the other? And if you want to shoot at a larger aperture, you just stick on an ND filter.
 
It's complicated.
Given a powerful enough flash, and a ND filter to reduce to amount of light hitting the sensor, it can be done. The problem is, most people don't have enough flash power to use that method, or at least not in bright sunlight. In my experience, it takes a true 600Ws flash fitted with something like this high intensity reflector, in most situations.

Obviously there is always a considerable light loss when using a higher than normal shutter speed and bodging it to allow that to be done, the trick though is to gain the maximum benefit by using the slowest shutter speed that will significantly reduce the effect of the ambient without discarding most of the flash energy.

The lower powered flash units, which I won't identify, are fine at overpowering the ambient only when the ambient level is low. If it's dark enough, even a hotshoe flash will do fine
 
mike weeks said:
Been playing with Lencarta Li-Ion Safari and Pocket Wizard TT1 / TT5 and have tested to 1/8000, an example at 1/1000
DSC_3487edited.jpg
- what other triggers are people using for hypersync and not interested in speedlights.

Mike
Click to expand...

Thats is a very nice picture period!
 
treeman said:
So the above image could have been obtained by shooting at 250th sec, putting on a 2 stop ND filter, to counter the affect on aperture and using all of the flash power. So same dark sky, same correctly exposed horse, same aperture.

Or am I missing something?

If you can shoot at two stops higher shutter speed, but loose two stops of light power, surely one negates the other? And if you want to shoot at a larger aperture, you just stick on an ND filter.
Click to expand...

The horse shot is maybe not such a good example of tail-hypersync, where the main benefit is a fast action-stopping shutter speed. Exif says it was taken at 1/800sec f/5.6, in which case just using f/11 would bring the shutter speed down to normal x-sync. Or, if f/5.6 is important, then a 2-stops ND filter would sort it.

As a rule of thumb, you will get most flash brightness relative to ambient at normal x-sync speed, though this is not an absolute and depends a lot on flash duration and the shutter cycle time. I've not tried it with a wide variety of equipment, but for example I've had much better results with a Nikon D700 and Lencarta Li-on (fast shutter, longer flash) than with a Canon 5D2 and Elinchrom Quadra (slow shutter, fast flash) with A-head option. Actually, that last combo was quite useless with dramatic darkening across the frame using tail-hypersync.

There are a couple of tricks to minimise unevenness with tail-hypersync, and they can make a big difference. The image is always darker at the top, so turning the camera vertical (so top is now on the left) and positioning the main light on the left (as it looks like Mike has done with the horse) then it's not hard to adjust things so that inverse square law fall-off counter-balances this quite nicely. And keeping the main subject in the middle also helps a lot.
 
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Mark,

the important thing is that I can now shoot images like this at all times of the day using whatever aperture I want within reason. Just select an aperture, adjust shutter speed to get exposure in background I want and then just adjust flash to brighten up subject. Yes as the shutter speed goes up you lose some of the power but certainly not a 2 stop loss for being 2 stops above x-sync.
Safari works best with combined A+B probably due to having to pass all power through 1 head, had to play with settings on Pocket Wizards but worth the effort. As Richard says there is some fall off but for this type of image it is not an issue.

Mike
 
mike weeks said:
Mark,

the important thing is that I can now shoot images like this at all times of the day using whatever aperture I want within reason. Just select an aperture, adjust shutter speed to get exposure in background I want and then just adjust flash to brighten up subject. Yes as the shutter speed goes up you lose some of the power but certainly not a 2 stop loss for being 2 stops above x-sync.
Safari works best with combined A+B probably due to having to pass all power through 1 head, had to play with settings on Pocket Wizards but worth the effort. As Richard says there is some fall off but for this type of image it is not an issue.

Mike
Click to expand...

Have you optimised the sync timing with the PWs Mike? If so, what difference did it make?
 
mike weeks said:
Yes as the shutter speed goes up you lose some of the power but certainly not a 2 stop loss for being 2 stops above x-sync.


Mike
Click to expand...

This is the test, I'd like to see, by someone with more patience than me!

In my limited tests with the PW's and an Elinchrom Ranger RX, the drop off in flash power was directly proportional to the increase in shutter speed
 
Richard if you look at the PW Wiki results with any light with a D800 they have some shutter in shot at higher speeds, I do not, yes there is fall off as you would expect but was worth the effort of about 45 minutes and swapping trigger back to laptop to configure. Also worth playing with light ouput and settings as I get much better performance using the A+B than just the A setting i.e. full power to one head. What I need to try is using both heads to see what happens, as that is the configuration that I will most likely employ.
Although I say it does not appear to be strictly linear in exposure change with shutter speed I have not scientifically proved one way or the other - it does what I need and that is what is important :)

Mike
 
Not seen that PW Wiki before. Interesting :thumbs: I'd guess that the Lencarta Li-on would be at least as good as any examples there.

Mark's question re power loss, it depends how you measure it, eg at top of frame, bottom or middle. My tests with Nikon D700 at 1/1000sec, Li-on at full power, and PW Mini/Flex at default off-set, showed about one stop drop at the bottom, around two in the middle, and three or more at the top. This will vary with individual camera and flash characteristics, and PW off-set.

Brightness goes down at higher shutter speeds and while it's close to proportional, it may not be exactly - again depending on specific characteristics. The important thing there though, is that ambient exposure is also reduced at the same time so the flash/ambient ratio stays the same. Then if you employ the techniques mentioned above to minimise fall-off up the frame, results can be very good - as Mike's shot illustrates so well :)
 
ding76uk said:
With -2 stops on BG though wouldn't using a flash with higher T1 time achieve the same result though?
Click to expand...

Need to explain the question a bit more.
 
HoppyUK said:
Need to explain the question a bit more.
Click to expand...
With underexposing the background 2 stops wouldn't the flash duration be the shutter speed?

If you are doing action photos with this effect the flash lighting the subject would freeze the action and negate the need for the high shutter speed. Therefore allowing you to get the full output power from the flash without needing HSS..
 
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ding76uk said:
With underexposing the background 2 stops wouldn't the flash duration be the shutter speed?

If you are doing action photos with this effect the flash lighting the subject would freeze the action and negate the need for the high shutter speed. Therefore allowing you to get the full output power from the flash without needing HSS..
Click to expand...

With tail-hypersync, the flash behaves like continuous light as far as exposure is concerned - there is no 'freezing' going on apart from shutter speed.

Also, with most studio-type heads, the flash duration is relatively long with only modest action-stopping potential. It is this characteristic of the Lencarta Li-on that makes it better for tail-hypersync.

If that sounds a bit contradictory, check the link in post #4 for how it all works.
 
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