I generally shoot at my max sync speed (1/250 sec) using Cybersyncs. If I want to kill bright ambient, I generally use ND filters which block enough ambient light to bring down to my sync speed at relatively wide apertures. Unfortunately, the ND also blocks my flash equally, meaning I usually resort to monolights to provide enough power to get a decent flash exposure on my subject.


With your Pocketwizards, you can indeed use shutter speeds in excess of your camera's max sync speed--but in reality, only slightly. After about 1/640 second, the ControlTL changes to HSS mode firing. While HSS allows you to avoid clipping, you lose quite a bit of power as the shutter speed gets faster. You can time the Pocketwizards to capture the tail end of a studio strobe (instead of the peak pulse), but again you're losing a lot of power in the process.


That's why I generally buy high-powered monolights and use ND filters to dial in how much ambient exposure I want. It can be a bit cumbersome, and overkill at times, but for me it's much simpler.


For this recent session I shot at 1/250 sec, I used a CPL as a weak ND filter, and I chose a slightly more narrow aperture than I would usually use (this was shot at f/6.3 instead of f/4 or wider). This allowed me to bring the relatively bright sunlight under control so I could see detail in the clouds. I had three monolights on him--two in gridded stripboxes left and right, one in a gridded 16" Ebay beauty dish high slightly camera right. He was also facing the sun, so it's providing a good bit of fill light.









I didn't post the setup picture to Flickr, but I figured I'd upload it to a Google Photos gallery just so you could see it. In the shot above I think we increased the distance of the monos in the stripboxes so that we could get a wider angle (which would explain why they're a bit weaker in that picture).