Radio triggers capable of syncing at 1/1000 s

I recently looked into the same issue and was told that only the Profoto Air Sync radio trigger will do the trick. Most radio triggers send a signal that needs to be coded, sent and uncoded. The Air Sync apparently sends a constant signal which is interrupted to trigger the flash. I shoot Broncolor so this isn’t a viable solution for me. If I need faster than 1/500th sync speed I have to hard wire the camera to the pack. Wish it were otherwise…

Can confirm CS 1/1000th sync with Profoto AIR … no vignetting, clean corners.

Most other radio transmitters top out at 1/500th sync with leaf-shutter lenses. The extra stop with an AIR radio does help in overcoming the sun or white skies, and 1/1000th shutter even helps when shooting a longer hand-held lens with fill flash at wider aperture … (which I know from shooting a HC-210mm and HC-300mm @ 1/800 on my H4D/60).

In addition to Profoto AIR lighting, many Hensel Monos, generators and battery units also have Profoto AIR receivers built in … the latest Hensel Porty 1200 lithium battery unit is one that I frequently mixed in with Profoto AIR lights.

David K … have you thought about using the AIR transmitter, and an AIR receiver unit plugged in to your Broncolor pack? While it won’t allow adjustment of levels like with a Profoto AIR pack, it’ll trigger it from great distances without the hard-wire limitations.

You wouldn’t need the more expensive AIR radio units with level controls, just the base units … one set to transmit, and the other to receive.

I do that with an older Hensel pack that doesn’t have AIR built in.

-Marc

Marc, I did not know that Profoto made an AIR receiver unit. I see that B&H has a transceiver for Hensel units…but nothing specifically for Broncolor. I will have to look into this further but if they work like Pocket Wizards it should do the trick. Thanks for the heads-up.

David K;4339 wrote: Marc, I did not know that Profoto made an AIR receiver unit. I see that B&H has a transceiver for Hensel units…but nothing specifically for Broncolor. I will have to look into this further but if they work like Pocket Wizards it should do the trick. Thanks for the heads-up.

Air Synch supposedly works with any flash unit.
http://profoto.com/int/products/air-system-wireless-sync-remote-control/air-camera-tranceivers/item/air-sync

Alien Bees cyber synch specs state 1/4000… But no idea if I works…I will try it as soon as my S and 70mm CS arrive ( hopefully today!).

A bit more clarification:

The full featured Profoto AIR transceivers are called AIR Remote … meaning you can adjust the levels of the pack/mono-light and the modeling light of any unit with AIR remote receiver built-in (Profoto or Hensel).

The Profoto AIR Sync transceiver is for triggering only, and doesn’t have the controls for adjusting levels from the camera. With packs like the Profoto Acute B2 Lithium AIR-S, the “S” stands for Sync … meaning it can only be triggered but not adjusted from the camera (because the Acutes use analog dials and rocker switches rather than digital control).

Standard sync is up to 1/500 with leaf shutter cameras … but both AIR transceivers will sync up to 1/1000 when set to the speed mode. This is accomplished by pressing the Mode button for 7 seconds.

Personally, I only became aware of the “Speed Mode” recently and have inadvertently been shooting at 1/500 sync for images where I had set the camera to 1/750 or 1/1000.

It pays to read the darned manual before you use this stuff … LOL!

– Marc

If you own the pocketwizzards it may also be an idea to adjust the synctimes manually. maybe they open to late or close to early, this can be set manually to adjust it to the needs of the camera

Can the Profoto Airsync be used to trigger an external SF58 flash at 1/1000s ?
(1 transmitter on the S2 with CS lens and 1 receiver connected to some sort of hot shoe with mini jack f.i. and plugged to the SF58 in manual mode) :confused:

David K … have you thought about using the AIR transmitter, and an AIR receiver unit plugged in to your Broncolor pack? While it won’t allow adjustment of levels like with a Profoto AIR pack, it’ll trigger it from great distances without the hard-wire limitations.

You wouldn’t need the more expensive AIR radio units with level controls, just the base units … one set to transmit, and the other to receive.

I do that with an older Hensel pack that doesn’t have AIR built in.

-Marc

Came across this while researching the use of the AIR transmitters with my new Bron Move 1200 kit.

To sync everything together, we had to use the Profoto Air Sync receivers. In my initial tests before heading out to the hill, I found out the Air Sync’s were not outputting enough power to trip the Move power pack. My Pocket Wizards tripped the pack fine, but for some reason the Profoto’s didn’t want to play nice. Unfortunately, the only wireless flash system on the market that is able to sync at 1/1600 with the Phase are the Profoto Air Syncs. Time to MacGuyver a solution, and that we did. Profoto Air Sync to Nikon SB-800. The Move was placed on ‘Cell’ and was able to see the Nikon inside it’s protective case, still affording the 1/1600 durations we were hoping for. The Air Syncs mysteriously stopped syncing for an hour on the mountain, possibly the cold got to them, but that is why you see the red sync cord in the video briefly. I’ve let Broncolor know about my findings between the pack and the Air Sync and will hopefully update when there is more info.

Full article here…http://www.mikelastphoto.com/blog/2013/02/testing-the-new-broncolor-move-1200-system-mount-st-louis-moonstone-on/

Got a friend who has access to this combination who’s supposed to try it out for me.

I’ve been going back and forth with my friend Dave McRitchie and his tech guy Chris Valites at Capture Integration on this issue and doing a little testing myself. Turns out that the flash duration of the pack has quite a bit to do with whether you can sync at higher shutter speeds. With my new Broncolor Move 1200 pack the flash duration is so short (at minimum power) that I can sync to 1/1000th with either my Pocket Wizards set to FAST mode or the Bron RFS 2 transmitter that comes with the pack. Looking at the images and histogram on the camera there is virtually no light fall off between 1/125th and 1/750th and only minimal fall off at 1/1000th. Nothing that couldn’t easily be tweaked in post. The same test with my Mobil A2R and Verso A4 packs yielded dramatically worse results…so much fall off that high shutter speed sync is a non-starter for those packs. I haven’t tested what happens at higher power settings but would expect that fall off will increase in inverse proportion to the flash duration. If and when I get around to doing that I’ll post a follow up.

David, what is the W/s of the Move Pack when set to minimum power?

– Marc

Marc,

Looks like it’s 4.5…and the two outlets are fully asymmetrical.

David

David,

I am following this closely as my Move 1200 pack arrived this past week…upgrade from the
Mobil LED set.

Have not had a chance to use it yet but could not pass up the extra battery and the RFS2
transmitter…not the Profoto AIR but better than the RFS original.

Bob

Bob,

Congrats on your new Move pack…you’re going to love it. After shelling out the $$ to upgrade to CS lenses I’ve been frustrated by not being able to utilize their higher sync speed capabilities until now. I recently found out the hard way that 1/125th sync speed is sometimes insufficient to freeze motion when shooting handheld with a fair amount of ambient light irrespective of the flash duration.

I hope you’ll share your sync experiences with the new kit when you get around to using it.

David

Following Capture Integration dealer it is possible to work on 1/1000s sync speed with the Pocketwizard III plus. Their ‘speed’ mode does work to 1/1000s even if the specs state 1/500s max. The only other model compatible with 1/1000s in the PW range are the expensive MultiMax.

I have a set of Elinchrom Quadra Hybrid Li-ion Action Heads (with flash duration up to 1/4000th sec) triggered by an Elinchrom Skyport Speed trigger. I am thinking of buying a S(006) body and a 70CS lens with the discount before the new rumoured CMOS S version TBC at Photokina.

Does anyone know if I will be able to use the 1/1000 flash sync capability of the CS leaf shutter, or will I be crippled by the Skyport trigger (which has a published 1/320 max sync speed with SLRs)?

Many thanks

Charlie

topoxforddoc;8564 wrote: I have a set of Elinchrom Quadra Hybrid Li-ion Action Heads (with flash duration up to 1/4000th sec) triggered by an Elinchrom Skyport Speed trigger. I am thinking of buying a S(006) body and a 70CS lens with the discount before the new rumoured CMOS S version TBC at Photokina.

Does anyone know if I will be able to use the 1/1000 flash sync capability of the CS leaf shutter, or will I be crippled by the Skyport trigger (which has a published 1/320 max sync speed with SLRs)?

Many thanks

Charlie

Since no one answered this, I will try.

You can use the Elinchrom SkyPort up to 1/500 sync with the CS lenses (or any leaf-shutter able camera/lens system)

To achieve the extra stop @ 1/1000 sync, you’d need to use the Profoto AIR system set to the Speed setting. That would require two Profoto AIR transceivers which are not inexpensive, plus you’d loose the ability to remotely control the output levels on your Quadra pack like with the SkyPort.

1/500th is quite respectable. I only occasionally use 1/1000 sync with my Profoto units when the outdoor background is really bright, but even 1/1000 is sometimes not enough to tame really bright skies.

Hope this helps,

– Marc

I have no problem syncing at 1/1000s with my Pocketwizard FlexTT5s.

PC Sync Cord

Not that none of you has thought of this but it has not been mentioned. The obvious answer is to hard wire the camera to the flash.