Yet another 'atom or safari' thread

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Ok, I've been round the houses a few times and I keep coming back to Lencarta stuff so this seems the most appropriate place for a sanity check before I press the button.

On location I currently use 2 x Yongnuo 560III and an Olympus FL600R, fitted with a variety of modifiers, e.g. small softboxes, brollies, etc. I don't have any studio kit but hire studios fairly often.

I often feel the need for larger modifiers on location, particularly a biggish beauty dish and/or a strip soft box. For want of a better word I shoot conceptual and fashion-inspired stuff at the moment, mainly in the evening. I've no need to compete with bright sunshine yet.

I'm drawn to the atom 360, partly because of the price and partly because of the IGBT characteristics. I often work with aerialists and acrobats and the motion stopping potential is very appealing, even though I don't have a particular need for it at present - the poses are normally fairly static.

So will the 360 fill a biggish strip soft box or beauty dish nicely? Will it actually be too much power for me (the base ISO of my Olympus is nominally 200).

I'd also be looking to add gels etc. I haven't bought the dish or strip box yet.

Does this seem sensible? Should I go for the Safari? If so why?
 
juggler said:
So will the 360 fill a biggish strip soft box or beauty dish nicely? Will it actually be too much power for me (the base ISO of my Olympus is nominally 200).
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Yes it will. Just 2 reservations really.
1. Ignoring the small(ish) beauty dish designed specifically for the Atom, although the Atom will work just as well as a Safari (or a mains powered studio head) in an ordinary beauty dish with a A-fit adapter, you will need to stuff the space around the Atom head with something to stop light bouncing backwards. Not a big deal but something to mention.
2. Placement of a beauty dish is precise; not having a modelling lamp in that situation is a disadvantage.

Leaving these fairly minor points aside, the performance of the Atom for your specific needs will be just as good as the Safari. In other words, if 360Ws will be enough, there's no point in getting the bigger, heavier and more expensive Safari.
As for the possibility of too much power, that really won't be a problem because the Atom 360 powers down to 2.8 Ws
 
I have the Atoms (well different make same light) and can't recommend them enough. I have 2 lights and also the s fit brackets. They work a treat with my beauty dish and other modifiers.
On another note you would need the Cells 2 trigger to use HSS. I have both types of triggers and the Yongnuo 622's
 
Just something to understand here, the 360 at full power has a flash duration of 1/250 - 1/300 second which will not have the action stopping capability of something like a Nikon SB900 at full power which has a flash duration of about 1/900second. This is however a false comparison because if you reduce the power of the 360 to match the 900 then the flash duration also drops (IGBT does that) - big advantage is that you can use hypersync with the 360 and still get a meaningful flash output.

If you can tune the hypersync with the 622 you can then use the lencarta triggers clipped on to them

Mike
 
Garry Edwards said:
Yes it will. Just 2 reservations really.
1. Ignoring the small(ish) beauty dish designed specifically for the Atom, although the Atom will work just as well as a Safari (or a mains powered studio head) in an ordinary beauty dish with a A-fit adapter, you will need to stuff the space around the Atom head with something to stop light bouncing backwards. Not a big deal but something to mention.
2. Placement of a beauty dish is precise; not having a modelling lamp in that situation is a disadvantage.

Leaving these fairly minor points aside, the performance of the Atom for your specific needs will be just as good as the Safari. In other words, if 360Ws will be enough, there's no point in getting the bigger, heavier and more expensive Safari.
As for the possibility of too much power, that really won't be a problem because the Atom 360 powers down to 2.8 Ws
Click to expand...

Garry, thank you for taking the time to reply - I'd forgotten the modelling light issue but I don't think it's a show stopper. I seem to be (a) ok at positioning things without and (b) unusually bad at translating what a modelling light gives into end result. It would still be useful - but not essential - when working in the dark, though.
 
gary996 said:
I have the Atoms (well different make same light) and can't recommend them enough. I have 2 lights and also the s fit brackets. They work a treat with my beauty dish and other modifiers.
On another note you would need the Cells 2 trigger to use HSS. I have both types of triggers and the Yongnuo 622's
Click to expand...

Gary, thanks for that. Do the Cells 2 triggers work with Olympus, do you know?
 
mike weeks said:
Just something to understand here, the 360 at full power has a flash duration of 1/250 - 1/300 second which will not have the action stopping capability of something like a Nikon SB900 at full power which has a flash duration of about 1/900second. This is however a false comparison because if you reduce the power of the 360 to match the 900 then the flash duration also drops (IGBT does that) - big advantage is that you can use hypersync with the 360 and still get a meaningful flash output.

If you can tune the hypersync with the 622 you can then use the lencarta triggers clipped on to them

Mike
Click to expand...

That's useful info, Mike, esp since I don't really expect to get HSS working with my Oly. Am I right in thinking the 622 allows you to tune the delay? Why would I need the Lencarta triggers too in that case?
 
juggler said:
That's useful info, Mike, esp since I don't really expect to get HSS working with my Oly. Am I right in thinking the 622 allows you to tune the delay? Why would I need the Lencarta triggers too in that case?
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I don't think that the Cells 2 is the best choice if you want to use a hypersync trigger - the Yongnuo YN-622 seems to be a much better bet.
And it has a pass through hotshoe on the TOP, which means that anything plugged into it isn't hanging down and under stress.

Why would you need the Lencarta triggers too in that case? You wouldn't, if all that you wanted to do was to trigger the flash. But for full remote control, you would plug the Wavesync transmitter into the YN-622 pass through hotshoe and this would give you both hypersync triggering and full remote control
 
The Cells2 trigger is being phased out (IIRC), they're certainly difficult to find. The Lencarta triggers allow remote 'control' but the YN622TX is the best bet for Hypersync AFAIK.
 
Hmm.. on reflection there seems to be a bit of confusion here over high speed sync and hypersync. Gary966 originally said I'd need the Cells 2 for HSS, not hypersync (aka long-tail sync) and that he already has the 622s. Which Garry & Phil say would work for Hypersync. Though I'd guess if a trigger can do one then it should be able to do the other?

(This is an aside..I'm expecting and hoping to be wrong here but..

..I'm struggling to understand how a trigger can implement either HS or HSS without fairly detailed knowledge of the protocol employed by a camera to communicate with its native speedlites. I'd have thought that any HS or HSS trigger would have to be manufacturer specific unless they all work in just the same way - and I don't haven't stumbled across any that are known to work with Olympus.

The only way I could think to implement it would be to get the camera to generate a pre-flash signal by making it think it is doing TTL and take the timings for either the HSS burst or the HS pulse from that - but then I am not a camera electronics designer.)
 
I think that most of the confusion here is about the terminology, not the technology.
And our resident expert of these things here on TP is Richard (HOPPYUK) not me...

The Atom has built in stroboscopic flash. This consists of a very large number of low powered flashes all firing one after the other, for long enough for the shutter to complete its cycle during the process of flashing. These flashes are, in effect, a continuous light, and the whole idea is modelled on the invention of Zeiss back in 1953, which used a very long-duration flash bulb to create such a slow burn that it burned for as long as the focal plane shutter took to complete its cycle - this was revolutionary back then, because as long as you bought these special and incredibly expensive FP flash bulbs, you could use any shutter speed you liked, back at a time when the normal focal plane shutter sync speed was just 1/30th second - so, nothing much has changed in the last 61 years except that the same principle is used with electronic flash, and with pretty much the same disadvantage - the amount of effective power is very low.

Then there's hypersync. This has ALMOST nothing to do with the flash, it's all about the camera and the trigger. Here, the trigger times the flash and allows any shutter speed to be used. There are some cameras that don't work well using this method, mainly the fairly slow models of Canon. As I'm not a Canon user I don't know the details, but basically if the camera's normal maximum synch speed is only 1/200th second then its shutter is slow, and is less likely to work well with hypersync than a faster shutter.

Out of the kindness of my heart I did write something about this on our "Jargon Buster" page
High Speed Sync or HSS refers to rapid pulsing of IGBT-controlled flashguns, creating an even brightness of what is effectively a continuous light that is present for the brief period of the shutter cycle. HSS allows literally any shutter speed to be used, but the downside of this is that there is a big loss of effective power.

Peak Hyper-sync: This a proprietary technology developed by Pocket Wizard. It adjusts the timing of the flash and so allows the camera's x-sync speed to be raised slightly (like half a stop-ish) with no loss of brightness. It requires the use of a specific radio trigger, made by Pocket Wizard.

Tail Hyper-sync: This uses the long flash duration common to most studio-type heads most of the time, and also works with most other flash units when used at full power output. The advantage, when used with a radio trigger designed for the purpose, is that literally any shutter speed can be used. However, there's a big loss of brightness with Tail Hyper-sync, and exposure also varies significantly down the frame.

The trigger comes into the equasion because it needs to talk to the camera. The way an electronics engineer explained it to me, Canon cameras are pretty easy to hack into because their shutters are relatively simple and their data isn't encrypted. Nikon are more complex because they are the oppsite. Basically with the few triggers that do work in this way with Nikon cameras, the trigger cons the camera into believing that a SB-900 is plugged into its hotshoe. Other makes, such as Olympus, I just don't know but my guess is that the market for triggers to work with these cameras may be too small to interest the trigger manufacturers. But, with Nikon and now Canon, Yongnuo seem to have come up with a trigger that does the job as well or better than any other and at a sensible price.

There is however a hack, using a hotshoe flashgun - as I said earlier, Richard is the expert on this.

The flash does however have some relevance, because the flash duration needs to be long enough to cover the cycle of the camera shutter. Nearly all flash heads are fine. IGBT flash heads (for example the SuperFast, Atom, any hotshoe flash) are fine at full power, but once the power has been turned down the flash duration is likely to become too short.
Some of the conventional-technology short flash duration heads are too fast.
 
They are indeed 2 different functions, for true HSS, the flashgun and triggers have to be HSS (or other camera specific name) capable. Usually this is done by the flashgun pulsing throughout the shutter movement.

With studio lights, you need hypersync/ supersync. For this to work, your triggers have to be able to tell the camera they're using HSS so that the camera will allow a shutter speed above sync speed (might work using the PC sync).

Edit: Obviously Garry beat me to it, but I'm not deleting it.
 
Thank you both again. I'll regard finding an HSS or HS solution as a bonus, for now. I imagine that if I use an Oly flashgun in HSS mode, put the atom in HSS mode and use slave triggering then I could get HSS from the Atom should I ever need it.
 
This from the Pocket Wizard Wiki explains it all; (from http://wiki.pocketwizard.com/index....ync_and_High_Speed_Sync&action=edit&oldid=160)

=== Using the Peak ===

The '''peak''' method uses the brightest peak of light generated by the flash.

Look at the X-Sync time line above. Steps 2 and 4 have some wasted time. Optimizing HyperSync to use the peak capitalizes on this wasted time. Moving the peak of light to a little bit before X-Sync can save enough time that you can use a shutter speed faster than X-Sync. As long as the second curtain is not yet moving when the flash is generating its peak of light, you will not get clipping.

Optimizing for the peak is effective for shutter speeds just faster than X-Sync, but not for the fastest shutter speeds of 1/640 and faster. Some camera and flash combinations can achieve up to 1/500 using this method, some only 1/250, before they encounter clipping at faster shutter speeds.

When adjusting HyperSync to work with the peak, you would be working with numbers closer to 0 (zero) on the HyperSync slider because you are only moving the peak of light a little way from X-Sync.

You need either:

*a very short peak flash duration so that the peak of light is finished before the second curtain begins to move.
*a very long peak flash duration so that the peak of light isn't changing when the second curtain is moving. It is not likely to find a flash with this kind of duration.


If you are using Speedlites as your flash source, you can optimize HyperSync for the shutter speeds just faster than X-Sync, then use the ControlTL system to switch over automatically to use HSS at shutter speeds where a normal flash would start to show clipping in the frame. See the [[Sync Timing Tab]] section in the [[PocketWizard Utility]] for information on setting "High Speed Sync (HSS/FP) Begins At:" for your ControlTL transmitter.



=== Using the Tail ===

The '''tail''' method uses the long tail of light generated after the peak is finished in a standard flash. This long tail is seen as continuous light for a shutter speed faster than X-Sync. Optimizing for the tail can often work for the fastest shutter speeds all the way up to 1/8000. This method delivers much less light to the camera's sensor than using the peak, but depending on your studio flash in use it can be substantially more than what is delivered by a Speedlight in HSS mode.

To use this method of HyperSync, you need to disable HSS in your ControlTL transmitter. See the [[Sync Timing Tab]] section in the [[PocketWizard Utility]] for information on setting "High Speed Sync (HSS/FP) Disable Mode." If you do not check this box for your transmitter, then you will not be able to trigger your remote studio flash at shutter speeds faster than "High Speed Sync (HSS/FP) Begins At:."

You optimize for the tail by adjusting the HyperSync slider to the left (more negative). This moves the peak of light such that it is completed before the first shutter starts to open. Then the flash will only be generating the long tail of light while the shutters are open. Depending on your flash's duration, it may be difficult to optimize for the shutter speeds closest to X-Sync as those require the longest flash duration.

This method is only effective with studio flash. Speedlites do not generate enough light during the tail to be more effective than using HSS would be.
Click to expand...
 
Garry's description is a good one, so too is the link to PW. The confusion mostly arises because of the terminology that gets mixed up, plus it's important to understand how it all works with different flash units and different focal plane shutters.

The actual triggering for both High Speed Sync and Hypersync (Tail Hypersync) is quite simple in theory, using the camera's normal HSS triggering moment that happens just before the first curtain opens. HSS and Hypersync/SuperSync triggers just access that, and some triggers can be customised with an adjustable delay to fine tune the timing - basically trading more brightness but also more fading up the frame, versus less fading but also less brightness.

There's a popular hack to get Tail Hypersync with any flash unit that has a longer flash duration/tail. You need an on-camera HSS enabled gun, and an optical slave connected to a basic radio trigger, as per the pic. In this way, the flash fires in HSS mode, the slave picks that up and fires the radio trigger, and that in turn will fire any other remote flash units. I also have a much smaller and neater version working with a little Canon 270EX gun.

Edit: the same rig can also trigger remote second-curtain sync.

 
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HoppyUK said:
...using the camera's normal HSS triggering moment that happens just before the first curtain opens.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply & the hack. I think the key fact which determines whether this works in a generic way is whether there a standard for how the HSS triggering signal is sent to the flash which doesn't depend on manufacturer-specific pins or comms protocol.

For instance, it's conceivable that the HSS trigger signal is only sent via a manufacturer-specific pin, or only after a compatible speedlite sends a 'I'm in HSS mode' signal to the camera. Or is it always sent via the centre pin, regardless of whether the attached hotshoe accessory is in HSS mode or not? I suspect that there's no one answer. I might ask my Olympus contacts to do some ferretting around.
 
juggler said:
Thanks for the reply & the hack. I think the key fact which determines whether this works in a generic way is whether there a standard for how the HSS triggering signal is sent to the flash which doesn't depend on manufacturer-specific pins or comms protocol.

For instance, it's conceivable that the HSS trigger signal is only sent via a manufacturer-specific pin, or only after a compatible speedlite sends a 'I'm in HSS mode' signal to the camera. Or is it always sent via the centre pin, regardless of whether the attached hotshoe accessory is in HSS mode or not? I suspect that there's no one answer. I might ask my Olympus contacts to do some ferretting around.
Click to expand...

For the optical slave hack to work, you must have a gun that will fire in HSS mode with the camera in question. AFAIK, that is manufacturer-specific.
 
juggler said:
@Garry Edwards is this the best place to get advice on my proposed Lencarta shopping list? Or is there an email address I should use? thanks!
Click to expand...
If you want to email, it's support at lencarta dot com - or phone me, the number is on the lencarta dot com website
 
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