Mirror up note on H4x

[calindustries]

Just started getting a new issue I have never experienced before. When shooting in a studio setting (f16 1/500 of a second)

Realizing that the hotshot (pocket wizard) fires at the same time regardless of mirror up or not. So when I had been clipping the Profotos (and not realizing it) with the mirror down. I was getting a stop or so more exposure in mirror up (catching more of the strobe).

Interesting.... I would have thought the hot shoe trigger was connected to the shutter and not the shutter button...

[Joe Towner]

What's the mirror delay you use?  I use 100ms and noticed it a bit but that was with Buff gear, so it may play into it.

-Joe

[Peter Devos]

Just started getting a new issue I have never experienced before. When shooting in a studio setting (f16 1/500 of a second)

Realizing that the hotshot (pocket wizard) fires at the same time regardless of mirror up or not. So when I had been clipping the Profotos (and not realizing it) with the mirror down. I was getting a stop or so more exposure in mirror up (catching more of the strobe).

Interesting.... I would have thought the hot shoe trigger was connected to the shutter and not the shutter button...

As the shutter is in the lens and the mirror is not, it would be some darkened massive part of the image that is black... not the entire image being a stop darker. When shooting at 1/500 sec, most flashes loose a lot of their "flash power" because only a small part of te actual flash burning is recorded at that "high speed" :-)

[Joe Towner]

I guess I should explain what I saw, I had adjusted my H4D-50 body option 30 - 'Extra Mirror Delay' to 250ms for a little extra delay when doing shots handheld.  By switching it down to 100ms I got a brighter image, with no other changes.  I believe this is what they were experiencing.

[calindustries]

As the shutter is in the lens and the mirror is not, it would be some darkened massive part of the image that is black... not the entire image being a stop darker. When shooting at 1/500 sec, most flashes loose a lot of their "flash power" because only a small part of te actual flash burning is recorded at that "high speed" :-)

I get shutter clipping the flash if the duration is longer or if it's triggered late or early. What I've experienced is that it clips less on mirror up. This would mean that there is a better sync between the shutter and the hot shoe with the mirror up and with mirror down it is not synced as well. I sounds like I could explore some delay options based on Joe's post above. When the only change I did was moving from 1/500 to 1/250 there was no difference between mirror up and mirror down. But I was getting good sync/exposure at 1/500 when in mirror up mode. Note this was all with Pocket Wizards and I didn't try this same test with a hard line sync.

I've always known that there is most likely some clip at faster shutter times (even when using the Pro8 packs) but would have assumed it wouldn't matter mirror up or mirror down (as in whatever it clipped in mirror down it would be the same clip in mirror up) as the shutter is all in the lens and figured that was what was triggering the signal to the hot shoe.