Like when driving on a highway at 2 am, in many cases the maximum sync speed is more a suggestion than a ban.
And similarly, in some cases, the specifications of your camera lie: perhaps your camera is not able to reach the speed that is supposed to arrive.
As many of you know, if your camera says it can sync to 1 / 250, you can do a little better if you use a quick flash and a PC sync cable instead of a Pocket Wizard. And that little dark stripe product not sync if you shoot at 1 / 320, may not come to be seen.
Or maybe help better frame the image, as in this picture of a sunset over the limit synchronized my camera (more about this image in that other article
).
And speaking of this picture, if he wished, could have perfectly synchronized to 1 / 500. Would simply have given the flies at the camera and so the band would have been synchronized in the sky. The sky does not need synchronization - all ambient light is not it?
But on the other hand ... We've talked in the past to shoot above the sync speed. You can do fun things. But in some cases, camera designers work very limit to achieve those numbers this round in sync speeds. And sometimes they fall short.
Let me ask those who have a 5D MkII, what is your sync speed? A 1 / 200, right? (The devil has something to do with these cameras you buy for under $ 3K. There is 1 / 250 for you)
Well it may be a little worse. Maybe you leave a small dark band if you sync at 1 / 200. And heaven help you if you're trying to use a large flash, which tends to be slower than smaller ones. Or use an optical slave as a second source of light.
Look at this show in Guanajuato, Mexico. I am the VAL to Françoise, who is the one who shoots from the bottom of this picture.
I said you use 1 / 200 and seek an appropriate opening for a highly saturated sky and then add a flash to take Sara to the appropriate range of exposure. In addition, Françoise has another flash in the shaft to fill and Sara shadows are not black. Be very cool photo.
"No problem, right?
Well yes, except that the 5D MkII synchronized Françoise really only 1 / 160. This implies that only let go of the light pulse of SB-800 which we used as slave but not all. So much they were increasing the power of flash, not getting more exposure in the image. Upload the flash, all that does is prolong its life, the camera is not synchronized to 1 / 200, the extra light did not reach the image.
The flash is firing, but only partially synchronized. Most high-power flash is occurring after the shutter closes. and Françoise, naturally, became increasingly confused as Sara stayed with the same lighting level modificábamos despite the flash.
Meanwhile, a few meters away,
Peter Norby (who took these two pictures) was getting the expected results. Your camera - even a 5D MkII - use all the energy released by my SB-800 slave. Exactly the same scheme, the same team and same lighting conditions.
what came to Peter is what Françoise expected. But it just did not come out. It was not until again the same thing happened to us that day that I realized what was happening.
This time Peter was the model in a lighting scheme similar to this. We were five feet of him firing an SB-800 slave at half power. I mean, we started to beard burnt smell whenever shoot at the flash.
Nothing.
Well, sort of if, just enough to see the flash, but probably 80% of the pulse was not on the 5D MkII Françoise at 1 / 200. And that assumes that this is your sync speed. But it really is.
Then I thought: maybe, Françoise camera is a bit ...
slow. We lowered the speed to 1 / 160 and shoot again. In this new image, it seemed that Peter was lit by a small thermonuclear device. That was exactly what I expected at all the pictures above.
Test, Test, Test How do you know if you touched a slow motion? It's easy to do some tests.
You have to use a dark room. Put the flash on the camera and put the nominal sync speed of the manufacturer. Shoot a flash at full power on a wall and set the aperture to get a reasonable exposure. (It is important to use the flash at full power, because that way you generate the longest pulse that can make that flash. Use the lowest ISO you have and if you still dodge, get away from the wall). Now use a slower speed 1/3EV. For example, 1 / 250 to 1 / 200 or 1 / 200 than 1 / 160.
should not see any difference. If you notice any difference - A little brighter, or maybe a bit dark band that you had not noticed before - it's because your camera is not able to synchronize to the speed provided by the manufacturer.
can force the situation a bit, using the body flash at low power to trigger the slave flash at full power. It adds a small delay of synchronization (really low) and tell you what your limitations in this scheme with multiple flashes. Add a radio trigger here and a flash of study if you have it there and have all the information on the actual sync speeds you can use with your computer.
My D3 for example, can synchronize perfectly a SB-800 at full power optical slave, but produces a dark band at 1 / 250 if I use the Pocket Wizard and an AB800 or AB1600 at full power.
Then, turn the volume up to 11 If you are synchronizing with cable, radio trigger, or any other method that makes you think the camera has no flash, shutter speed rises above maximum sync speed and repeat the tests. That way you will become familiar with the bands produced by your camera to 1 / 320 and 1 / 500, to be ready in those situations where you need a little more control of the environment.
As long as you know exactly that part of the image will not be illuminated by the flash at those speeds, you can compose (and / or rotate the camera) to make it work.
Translator's note: The original title of the article "Know Your Sync" and the photo that heads this article is a pun, as in sync English sounds like it means battery sink - in the sense of sink, no battery -
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