Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hey,

I tested this with my gear and it worked great! It also worked with a SB-900 on camera (just to get the system into FP) and a CST in the PC camera connector triggering another SB-900 off camera!

That's freaking awesome! It opens up a whole new range of shooting opertunities during daylight.

Thanks for sharing this.

Cheers, Greg

Incidentally, i tried it as well with my Sony, and a special adapter i happened upon, and got the same effect, thanks for the heads up!

In case it has not been mentioned, if you connect to an SB800 (and presumably SB900), if the voltage in the CST drops too low (2.85V-ish) plugging the CST into the speedlite can lock up the flash. The CST will continue to work if connected by other means.

Maybe a Q sized Zeus ? :mrgreen:

Paul

I've been playing around with trying to get psuedo HSS with my B1600. I find that it works all the way up to 1/8000sec, but the sweet spot seems to be about 1/3200sec. The exposure looks pretty even. When you compare the flash spec's & T5 times, it seems that having a shutter speed faster than the T5 time gets you a good exposure...


(click on image to see full size, download & read exif)

This is straight out of camera. Canon EOS 1D Mk III. I used Metz 58MZd to trigger the B1600 (via the built-in optical slave) on full power. f/5.6 ~ 1/3200sec ~ ISO 100...

Paul

Paul, this is exactly what I have been clamoring for in my previous programs at WPPI and in all of my written works, and local/state/private seminars.

Even though Mr. Wiesniewsky is a very sharp guy when it comes to picking apart camera performance and sensor technology, if the camera makers got rid of mechanical shutters altogether and had evolved "snap shutter" technology, we wouldn't have to deal with all this kludgey claptrap sort of stuff requiring expensive dedicated flash systems coupled with 3rd party "piggyback" solutions.........are real PITA. All we want to do is bring the ambient to flash ratio down into the workable aperture range of f/2 to f/8 which can maintain our selective focus optically on one end, and avoid the dreaded aperture diffraction at the other.

Everything in audio today should be incredible with cheap DVD audio and 96 Khz sampling with 24 bit DACs.......but NO, we need to compress dynamics to make everything loud and lossy compress the data to crank those 99 cent downloads as fast as possible.

Us guys with all large format horn systems are still seeking good music with good recording techniques that make full use of the storage/playback medium (like a $39 dvd player)

Not that I don't agree that faster shutter speeds are incredibly useful, I thought I'd point out that if your only goal is to get a wider aperture while still keeping the ambient in check, you could use ND filters instead of increasing the shutter speed. Obviously that's not always terribly convenient, but it is something that is completely doable today with any flash on any camera.

I'm absolutely interested in getting higher shutter speeds for the ability to stop motion while balancing ambient with flash. I really can't see any alternative to increasing shutter speed or living with significant motion blur with fast motion in situations where you want (or must) include significant ambient light in the exposure. To me this is the time where various "hacks" become much more acceptable and quite honestly, much more likely than the camera manufacturers suddenly solving the issues with either their sensors or shutters. . .

I just posted another thread before I remembered this one was here asking about how fast an Einstein could be triggered in succession if for instance someone were to build a small timer-based trigger. Obviously you're not going to get fantastic results this way (flash duration is simply too long), but you may be able to get 10-20 pops or more which possibly may have some slim chance of providing evenish coverage. Okay, it'd probably look like crap, but it's worth a try and wouldn't take but a few seconds to test out. I'd try it right now if I had an FP capable flash so I could trick my camera into pretriggering. Kinda pointless if I can't capture any test images though;->

-Daniel

See if the Lumopro LP160 fits the bill:

http://www.lumopro.com/product.php?id=25

I assume the comment about multiple pops means you want more power. At full power 10 pops will take 18 seconds to complete. Use a silver PLM. At 10' and full power you'll get close to f45 ISO100 at 1/250 second using CyberSync. A 4f ND will bring that down to around f11 and bring the sun down by 4 stops.

If you want to freeze action better, drop the E640 down to 320WS and use a 3f ND.

I really just was referring to a possible HSS hack, but as you already responded to my other thread about that, I don't think it's really possible to do as a hack to an E640. It'd have to be a feature specifically added by y'all.

There are some situations where your exposure must include a large percentage of ambient light because it is needed to attain the desired result (not underexposing a distant background for example). Strong backlit or sidelit situations with fast action would be a good example where you need to keep the ambient. In particular, surfing comes to mind. Consider a situation where the front side of the surfer is in shadow, and there is a strong side/back lit situation. You still want that ambient, but it'd be awesome if you could fill in the front side of the subject as well. Without high shutter speeds (probably around 1/1000th), you'd end up with a blurry subject, which may look cool with rear curtain sync, but still wouldn't be the same shot as a completely frozen subject.

Thinking "outloud" again, so please forgive me;->

Kind Regards,
-Daniel