Strobist questions

[TakahiroW4047]

Hmm thanks for the tip on the White Lighting Ultra!! I'll definitely look into that.


Now that I think about it, if I'm going to be underexposing the background, then whether it is in focus or OOF becomes less of an issue. Touche []


If the two methods are of equal price though, I may still bank on the portability of the speedlight. That and I also like photographing events too and I'm starting to feel the limits of a manual flash (Although in certain circumstances, bouncing off the ceiling at a constant power is favorable). ETTL from the Canon speedlights might be next on my wish list. 2 birds with 1 stone.

I've tried rear-curtain sync using optical triggers with less-than-reliable results. Then again, I may have been stretching the practical use by just a bit (I won't go into detail).

I was thinking about having the canon speedlight(On camera in HSS mode) optically triggering the Cactus V4 transmitter so it would radio trigger the Cactus V4 receivers to set off the off camera flashes. I came across some hotshoe optical triggers going for about $30. Although the range of the Cactus V4's are pretty sketchy so I wouldn't know how practical that would be as well...

[TakahiroW4047]

Hey Sean. With so many speedlights, any experience with any Sigma brands??

[Sean Setters]

None. Honestly, my favorites are the three Quantaray flashes I got for about $25 each on closeout. They

[Colin500]

Just curious, but how does a camera sync with a flash up to 1/8000 sec? Is the timing reversed, i.e. instead of the flash firing while the shutter is open, does the shutter open while the flash is firing?

Been trying to overpower ambient light with off camera strobe that can't do HSS.


The off camera strobe fires when the first curtain starts to open and lasts until the second curtain closes. If the flash duration at full power is 1/1000sec, then the shutter speed is faster, thus making the flash a continuous light source during that time. Then your flash starts to act like ambient light so with higher shutter speeds you'll start to get less exposure and need to open up the aperture or raise the ISO. But that's exactly what I'm going for. Shooting wide open, killing ambient light so my the background is couple stops underexposed relative to the subject, with a single measly speedlight [img]/emoticons/emotion-5.gif[/img]


The trick is to have your camera somehow trigger the off camera strobes while it is in HSS mode. I've read about using 430 or 580's on camera in HSS mode at the lowest power. You strap an optical trigger on the flash head and have that wirelessly trigger your off camera strobes. Unfortunately the camera strobes don't seem to do HSS, and I don't have either of those Canon speedlights at the moment [img]/emoticons/emotion-6.gif[/img]


But once I do! hopefully I'll be shooting outdoors on a sunny bright day with my portable (and relatively weak) speedlights and be able to easily and completely overpower the sun for some dramatic shots! [img]/emoticons/emotion-2.gif[/img]

Interesting, hadn't thought of reversing (the inclusion relationship of) the timing in that way; suppose I can just try it with the D-Lite and see what happens; not having any other strobes, I'm triggering with the Skyport ECO transmitter.


(Btw, one reason to choose the D-Lite was that the radio-receiver is built in to every strobe, a few less cables and stuff to think about; of course compared to speedlights the whole setup is pretty much indoors only, and I hope that limitation won'b bite me further down the road.)


Ciao, Colin

[TakahiroW4047]

Interesting, hadn't thought of reversing (the inclusion relationship of) the timing in that way; suppose I can just try it with the D-Lite and see what happens; not having any other strobes, I'm triggering with the Skyport ECO transmitter.

Not sure what you mean by "reversing (the inclusion relationships of) the timing"?


Did you mean to switch from 1st curtain to 2nd curtain? If so, that method shouldn't work from what I read. I believe it'll switch from the "strobes firing at the moment both curtains become fully open", to "strobes firing at the very end right before fully open curtains begin to close". You will need "strobes firing when the first curtain begins to open, until the second curtain closes" and you can only get that with HSS enabled canon flash on hotshoe (or off camera with ST-E2/cable).


Unfortunately the camera will not go into HSS mode with radiotriggers on its hotshoe []

...compared to speedlights the whole setup is pretty much indoors only, and I hope that limitation won'b bite me further down the road.)

You'll only be thankful down the road []


If you choose to go outdoors, just get some portable batteries and you'll be having a blast overpowering the sun!

[Colin500]

Not sure what you mean by "reversing (the inclusion relationships of) the timing"?

Erm, usually the order of events is more or less:


open shutter -> start flash -> stop flash -> close shutter


so if you mark the intervals "shutter is open" and "flash is flashing" on the time axis, the latter is a sub-set (sub-interval) of the former.


But with the high-speed synching you seem to invert this relationship by switching to:


start flash -> open shutter -> close shutter -> stop flash


which seems a cool trick, because suddenly you can use different shutter times to regulate the amount of light (provided by the strobe) that you capture, which you normally can't (on the flip side, you can regulate the amount of ambient light that you capture if you use normal synching and keep the shutter open for much longer than required to normally sync with the flash.)


I'll see about the batteries when it stops raining ;-)


Ciao, Colin