Help setting up 1/1600 flash sync

[jojo204]

Hey guys

So I have an Elinchrom Ranger RX speed with A head.  Im trying to get it to shoot faster than 1/250 with my Credo 40 and 80LS lens.  I have tried it with the pocketwizard powerST4 with no avail.  I have tried it with miniTT1 and flexTT5.  I put them in trigger only mode and still no go.  I even tried with just my plus II and still nothing.  With my Quadra sets and using the skyport triggers i can get it right up to 1/1600 with no problems at all.  

even in B plug no effect

Any help would be greatly appreciated  

thanks

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hey guys

So I have an Elinchrom Ranger RX speed with A head.  Im trying to get it to shoot faster than 1/250 with my Credo 40 and 80LS lens.  I have tried it with the pocketwizard powerST4 with no avail.  I have tried it with miniTT1 and flexTT5.  I put them in trigger only mode and still no go.  I even tried with just my plus II and still nothing.  With my Quadra sets and using the skyport triggers i can get it right up to 1/1600 with no problems at all.  

even in B plug no effect

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Hi,

I suggest you get into contact with Frank Doorhof, since he is very experienced with e.g. jump photography with the Elinchrom range of products. He is a kind of ambassador for their products, for a reason ...

From what I've heard, adding an additional flash head (even if not used for the actual exposure) in certain arrangements will cut the effective exposure time by the flash to a fraction. Again, I'm not an expert on Elinchrom, Frank on the other hand is!

Cheers,
Bart

[Transposure]

I use 1/1600s flash sync regularly with the Profoto Air system.  It was my understanding that this was the only solution for syncing that fast.  I use a Credo 60 with the 80LS and 110LS routinely with the Profoto 8A and the Profoto B4's.  The DF/DF+ can be used with either the Profoto Air grip or with a standard Profoto Air transceiver on the DF/DF+ hotshoe.  It works both ways.
The packs must have Profoto Air receiver radios built-in or an Air transceiver needs to be connected to the sync port.
Hope this helps.

[gazwas]

I use 1/1600s flash sync regularly with the Profoto Air system.  It was my understanding that this was the only solution for syncing that fast.  I use a Credo 60 with the 80LS and 110LS routinely.  The DF/DF+ can be used with either the Profoto Air grip or with a standard Profoto Air transceiver on the DF/DF+ hotshoe.  It works both ways.
The packs must have Profoto Air receiver radios built-in or an Air transceiver needs to be connected to the sync port.
Hope this helps.

Its not just Profoto that has the monopoly on high flash sync and while you may be able to sync at these speeds with Profoto gear the trade off will be loss of power output/exposure on much of their less expensive kit due to poor flash durations, especially as the power of the pack/head climbs. Profoto seem to make their kit sound more impressive by quoting t.05 flash duration times in their specs but for high speed sync this is a poor measurement of flash output. Hensel, Broncolor, PCB are other names that spring to mind that are able to sync at high sync speeds.

To the OP, try using a sync cable as high speed sync is often limited by the triggers used rather than the pack/head.

[Doug Peterson]

None of pocketwizard's syncs can handle 1/1600th. You're being limited by the pocketwizard.

[douglevy]

What Doug said. I have two of those packs and a Credo 40 (H). I use the elinchrom skyports speed to sync at 1/800 with no problems. When I've tried those wizards I can't get past 1/500.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

The question that seems unanswered, to me anyway, is why the OP is trying to achieve the shorter exposure time setting.

Is it to freeze motion, by using the slowly decaying tail of the flash output curve as a constant lightsource and the shutterspeed for stopping motion, and also reduce ambient light influence by doing so? Or is he trying to freeze motion by using a shorter flash duration, with an electronic limitation of flash output curve, in an otherwise controlled ambient lighting situation.

Cheers,
Bart

[Ken Doo]

None of pocketwizard's syncs can handle 1/1600th. You're being limited by the pocketwizard.

+1.  Except I do believe there is a way to program the new Pocket Wizard III transceiver to handle faster wireless flash sync triggering, also assuming that your lights have shorter flash duration to match your camera and lens capabilities.

Least expensive route to take advantage of Phase/Leaf faster flash sync speeds using a wireless trigger is the PCB cybersync transceiver CSXCV and Einstein combination with the CST trigger transmitter on the camera hotshoe. Not as nice as Profoto, Bron, and Hensel options, but it is at a fraction of the cost.

ken

[Doug Peterson]

+1.  Except I do believe there is a way to program the new Pocket Wizard III transceiver to handle faster wireless flash sync triggering, also assuming that your lights have shorter flash duration to match your camera and lens.

Yep. And if you already have a lot of PW gear you should look into fine tuning every last ounce and setting very last option. But as far as I know none of these adjustments will get you to a full 1/1600th.

[EricWHiss]

Some years back I ran into this limitation with my Pocket wizards and when I've wanted to use the faster sync speeds on my Hy6, I've just had to go old school with a wired sync cable.  10meter cable is like $30

[Frank Doorhof]

Hi,

1. if you want the fastest freezing speed
combine 2 A heads on the Ranger RX or Quadra, and use them on full power.
2 heads are faster than 1.

2. If you want fastest shutter speed
Use the sky port system on speed setting
You will be able to sync all the way up to 1/1600 BUT.... anything above 1/1000 you will loose output in my experience except on the S-heads.
So it's a bit of a tradeoff.

3. If you don't have sky ports.....
Use the standard sync cable.


Hope this helps.

[Transposure]

Its not just Profoto that has the monopoly on high flash sync and while you may be able to sync at these speeds with Profoto gear the trade off will be loss of power output/exposure on much of their less expensive kit due to poor flash durations, especially as the power of the pack/head climbs. Profoto seem to make their kit sound more impressive by quoting t.05 flash duration times in their specs but for high speed sync this is a poor measurement of flash output. Hensel, Broncolor, PCB are other names that spring to mind that are able to sync at high sync speeds.

To the OP, try using a sync cable as high speed sync is often limited by the triggers used rather than the pack/head.

I have not experienced any loss in power output or exposure that you speak of.  I am using the Profoto Pro 8A and several Profoto B4's.  I use them weekly outside, in the bright sun and shoot at f2.8 at 1/1600s.  Have shot hundreds of photos this way.  I've never had any problem, loss of power or exposure.  Works every time very reliably.

[calindustries]

I've been able to sync up to 1/1600 with the phase LS lenses and my rangers with both A heads and converted acute heads. I've also been regularly syncing up to 1/800 on my h4x with the same lights. All of this has been with my 12 year old pocket wizard plus kit (the 4 channel black ones).

[Chris Valites]

Hi Jojo,

I used to work at PocketWizard's tech support department, right up with the engineers in Burlington Vermont. Now that I'm with Capture Integration, a few of my coworkers pointed me over to your post to see if I could help.

A lot of the issues users experience with their flashes and their radios above their camera's nominal sync speed is due to two factors:

1.) Radio Latency delay due to processing time.
2.) Flash duration.

Radio latency delay is simply the time it takes for the transmitting radio's signal to go through the receiving radio's antenna to exiting the radio's miniphone port. Typically, the radio latency of a PocketWizard Plus III, PlusX, or MultiMAX is about 500 microseconds, or 1/2000th of a second. Newer ControlTL units like the MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 tend to follow the same 500 microseconds limitation, although (with compatible cameras) they work around sync timing by doing some of the transmission before your camera's shutter even opens. DF bodies aren't compatible, however, so you'd need to use these radios in Basic Trigger mode, which limits you to the normal 500 microseconds processing time.

However, most models of the MultiMAX and all Plus III radios have a mode called FAST mode. This shortens the microprocessing time to 250 microseconds, or 1/4000th of a second. This gets the signal out must faster, and allows you to sync at higher shutter speeds when using leaf shutters.

When you start getting faster and faster speeds, you run up against the flash duration side of the equation. Remember, the amount of light in your scene is additive. When you have a longer flash duration, it takes longer for the entire flash output to be rendered to your scene. When you're using higher shutter speeds, you can run into the scenario where you get less overall flash intensity in frame because the flash hasn't full put out all of its juice. On focal plane shutters, this can be shadowing at the bottom of the frame, but with leaf shutters, this can be darker images than at the rated X-sync speed of the camera.

The good news for you is that it's not your flash gear itself that's the problem, it's the radios.

Unfortunately, with the radios you have (the Plus II, MiniTT1, and FlexTT5) there are no ways to get FAST mode enabled. You'd need to use a MultiMAX with FAST mode (one of the USB models would do nicely,) or a Plus III. You'd need, bare minimum, one of those radios, and then you could use a MiniTT1 or a FlexTT5 on your camera. You cannot use a Plus II as a transmitter in this scenario because it does not transmit on the Channels required for FAST mode.

For a tl;dr summary, the radio gear you have right now won't allow you to tap the maximum potential of your leaf shutters; you'd need a Plus III or MultiMAX in FAST mode on your lights, and a Plus III, MultiMAX, or one of your MiniTT1s or FlexTT5s (set to Standard Transmit Channel 17 or higher) on your camera body.

You can see Capture Integration's test results with this setup here: https://captureintegration.com/definitive-guide-to-medium-format-high-speed-sync/
Using that post's information (it was created and tested before my time here) you can get up to 1/1600th with a Mamiya DF body and a Credo back.

Hope that helps! If you have any questions, let me know!

[calindustries]

Hi Jojo,

I used to work at PocketWizard's tech support department, right up with the engineers in Burlington Vermont. Now that I'm with Capture Integration, a few of my coworkers pointed me over to your post to see if I could help.

A lot of the issues users experience with their flashes and their radios above their camera's nominal sync speed is due to two factors:

1.) Radio Latency delay due to processing time.
2.) Flash duration.

Radio latency delay is simply the time it takes for the transmitting radio's signal to go through the receiving radio's antenna to exiting the radio's miniphone port. Typically, the radio latency of a PocketWizard Plus III, PlusX, or MultiMAX is about 500 microseconds, or 1/2000th of a second. Newer ControlTL units like the MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 tend to follow the same 500 microseconds limitation, although (with compatible cameras) they work around sync timing by doing some of the transmission before your camera's shutter even opens. DF bodies aren't compatible, however, so you'd need to use these radios in Basic Trigger mode, which limits you to the normal 500 microseconds processing time.

However, most models of the MultiMAX and all Plus III radios have a mode called FAST mode. This shortens the microprocessing time to 250 microseconds, or 1/4000th of a second. This gets the signal out must faster, and allows you to sync at higher shutter speeds when using leaf shutters.

When you start getting faster and faster speeds, you run up against the flash duration side of the equation. Remember, the amount of light in your scene is additive. When you have a longer flash duration, it takes longer for the entire flash output to be rendered to your scene. When you're using higher shutter speeds, you can run into the scenario where you get less overall flash intensity in frame because the flash hasn't full put out all of its juice. On focal plane shutters, this can be shadowing at the bottom of the frame, but with leaf shutters, this can be darker images than at the rated X-sync speed of the camera.

The good news for you is that it's not your flash gear itself that's the problem, it's the radios.

Unfortunately, with the radios you have (the Plus II, MiniTT1, and FlexTT5) there are no ways to get FAST mode enabled. You'd need to use a MultiMAX with FAST mode (one of the USB models would do nicely,) or a Plus III. You'd need, bare minimum, one of those radios, and then you could use a MiniTT1 or a FlexTT5 on your camera. You cannot use a Plus II as a transmitter in this scenario because it does not transmit on the Channels required for FAST mode.

For a tl;dr summary, the radio gear you have right now won't allow you to tap the maximum potential of your leaf shutters; you'd need a Plus III or MultiMAX in FAST mode on your lights, and a Plus III, MultiMAX, or one of your MiniTT1s or FlexTT5s (set to Standard Transmit Channel 17 or higher) on your camera body.

You can see Capture Integration's test results with this setup here: https://captureintegration.com/definitive-guide-to-medium-format-high-speed-sync/
Using that post's information (it was created and tested before my time here) you can get up to 1/1600th with a Mamiya DF body and a Credo back.

Hope that helps! If you have any questions, let me know!

Obviously you know way more about this than me. I basically plug in what's in front of me and see what works. How would you explain how mine work with the Plus II set up? I've not had an issue at all syncing that fast with LS lenses (both phase and blad). I'm not trying to disprove anything you said, I'm just curious.

-C

[Doug Peterson]

Obviously you know way more about this than me. I basically plug in what's in front of me and see what works. How would you explain how mine work with the Plus II set up? I've not had an issue at all syncing that fast with LS lenses (both phase and blad). I'm not trying to disprove anything you said, I'm just curious.

Pull the gear out, put it in a dark room (so that there is no ambient light) and shoot the same power setting on the light at 1/200th, 1/800th, and 1/1600th. You should notice the 1/1600th is significantly darker even though the flash fired at the same power because your pocketwizards weren't able to fire the flash in perfect sync and therefore the camera only saw a fraction of the flash output.

If you see identical exposures out of all three (or even pretty close exposures) please let us know as it would defy everything we know about PocketWizard high-speed sync and could lead to some interesting experimentation/research to see why it's working when it should not.

[Frank Doorhof]

I'm not able to draw something here (iPad) but a lot of people see strobes not the way they are.

Let's look at a slow strobe lets say with a flash duration of 1/800
It will look like this 0000001111111111111111110000000
In which the zeros are no strobe and the 1s are the strobe.

Now look at a very fast strobe with a flash duration of 1/5000
It will look like this 0000001111000000000000000000000
Same period of time but the strobe is there much shorter.

If you shoot on 1/125 there is no problem, the strobe is nicely recorded in all the range from the start of the 0s to the end of the 0s. However if you raise your shutter speed the range will be shorter in which the strobe is captured. The change that you cut the strobe in its rise or cut off is very likely with fast strobes.

Meaning if you shoot on 1/125 you will get f16
If you shoot on 1/500 you will get probably f16
But on 1/1000 you will start to get for example f11.3
And on 1/1600 probably around f8.5

Depending on the flash duration these numbers can be cut considerably. This is why with the hypersync from PW the fastest possible speeds are often achieved with slow strobes (d-lites etc) while with a heads on a ranger I never achieved anything higher than 1/320 on a canon 5d.

Take into account that a strobe has a rise and cutoff (this is for example one of the reasons water seems to fall up instead of down when freezing it) and your trigger has a certain delay and you will quickly find out that it's impossible to say that all strobes should sync at ......

Now also know that a strobe unit will have different flash durations over its power range and you will also realize that it's a can of worms

Best is to just try it out and remember for your gear and setting what works and use that.
If you want high shutterspeeds take slow strobes, if you want to freeze motion take very fast strobes and a slower shutterspeed but use ND filters.

[Chris Valites]

Obviously you know way more about this than me. I basically plug in what's in front of me and see what works. How would you explain how mine work with the Plus II set up? I've not had an issue at all syncing that fast with LS lenses (both phase and blad). I'm not trying to disprove anything you said, I'm just curious.

-C

It's totally true that it works (as in that it syncs and doesn't show shutter blades or curtains,) but there is going to be a BIG difference between shots done with a Plus II and shots done with a Plus III. Due to the difference in processing speeds between the modes, you can expect a massive difference in overall flash intensity in frame. I've shown a few examples below:

Mamiya 645 DF+ Body
Leaf Credo 40
Schneider Kreuznach 110mm LS f/2.8 AF
Profoto Acute 2 @ 1/2 power -2 stops

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uzowjyh1gwj747j/AAADSh6u7rtqOMKpI9rzOnnca/1.FAST%20Plus%20III%20vs%20Plus%20II.jpg

You can view a full folder of each radio method from 1/125th to 1/2000th here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uzowjyh1gwj747j/AAClm_a3j9HyvWd_aVUkVRAFa

As you can see, at 1/2000th the shutter switches to focal plane and you get zero sync with either method.

Again, it's a case of "It works, but it can work better and let you better tap the potential of your gear."

To tie it back to the original poster's comment, we need to know exactly what camera he's using, as it may be different from my setup. I made it the same as yours, Cal, so I could see what effects I'd get.

Hope that helps!

Frank is pretty much dead on as to how PocketWizard HyperSync works, as well. If I can get myself a flash output illustration, I'll draw up a timing illustration so as to better showcase what you get visually. Unfortunately, as I no longer have access to an oscilloscope, I can't show you the EXACT curve of the EXACT flash used in the examples.

[calindustries]

I understand how hyper sync works. The way I explain it to people is it's basically like a scan of the lit scene (fast shutter over the slow strobe). I also know that the faster sync with my system cuts a bit off the tail as well. I had thought that the original poster had not gotten any sync at all.

[gazwas]

I have not experienced any loss in power output or exposure that you speak of.  I am using the Profoto Pro 8A and several Profoto B4's.  I use them weekly outside, in the bright sun and shoot at f2.8 at 1/1600s.  Have shot hundreds of photos this way.  I've never had any problem, loss of power or exposure.  Works every time very reliably.

Mainly because you are using the very top of the range Profoto equipment however, in bright outdoor conditions and using the higher power settings on the packs the flash durations could be as low as 1/500s and if you're shooting at 1/1600s then there will be a loss of flash power. Possibly as you have lots of power on tap you have the luxury of just dialing up the packs more to compensate?