Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

i shoot with a 5d and 5dII. I cannot sync at 1/250 and the cybercommander will not let me set it up at 1/200. Should i go on and set the cybercommander at 1/250 and set my camera at 1/250?

Depends on where you shoot. If you are inside or in low ambient light, you can set the shutter speed in the CC to 1/125 or 1/250 with zero ill effects, while maintaining 1/200 in the camera. If you are outside, you can set the shutter speed in the CC to either, keeping in mind the ambiet will meter 2/3 over- or 1/3 underexposed (respectively) off while maintaining 1/200 in the camera.

If you are outside (or very high ambient light) and you go to 1/250 in camera, you will only see the black bar appear in areas lit by flash. If you have enough buffer at the top or bottom (wherever the black bar would appear), you can cut into the frame a little and not have any problems.

thanks, i have been using 1/250 on my camera since the cc was at 1/250 and getting the same results with no noticeable difference. this is all done in my studio. i have not tried it outside. should i go on and set my camera at 1/200 instead? its not going into high speed sync or anything since i'm not using my canon flashes. or does it not matter?

FWIW, Zach Arias runs his 5D at 1/125 because he saw a slight black bar even at 1/160. It's not an issue indoors, but outdoors, you're letting more ambient sunlight into your scene. Might or might not matter...try it to see if it bothers you...

If you take a photo indoors at any given shutter speed without your flash, and the image is black, you will not see a difference than one that was taken at 1/250. If there was zero ambient light and you used a 30 second shutter speed, you could flash the subject at the beginning, who could then walk off set or dance around or morph into a warewolf, and you would never know it from the image, since there is no light other than the brief flash burst for the shutter to control.