Hypersync

Dreadnote

Ok, so I have been playing the relatively new Pocket Wizard Control TL system for Nikon and it strikes me that something slightly odd is happening. Eager to achieve sync speeds faster than the stated 1/320 for my Nikon D300s, I started playing with the Hypersync settings. No matter where I moved the slider I could not sync 1/320. I would always get a black bar at the top about 1/8 inch in width. I could sync 1/400 and 1/500, but not 1/320. So I started thinking about why. It occurred to me that I might get different results if I changed the on camera sync settings. When I moved the setting on camera to sync at 1/250 instead of 1/320, the problem went away and I was able to sync clean all the way to 1/500.

So the question I have is why? Is Nikon already doing the same thing that Pocket Wizard is doing with Hypersync, advancing the flash trigger signal so as to get a faster sync speed? Perhaps the Nikon advance on the signal is pushing the Hypersync advance on the signal right out of the range of the slider when Nikon sync is set to 1/320. It strikes me that if that is so then the D300s really has a true sync speed of 1/250 and not 1/320. I believe that the shutter is the same on the D700, D3s and D3X?

Is that a fair conclusion to make? If it is then it means when I'm going for max flash output in low lit gyms and other situations, then 1/250 will be the top shutter speed for max flash power otherwise I'm going to get the tail end (T 0.1) of the flash. Which if I remember correctly means I'lll be getting as little as 1/10 total flash power on part of the image.

Does that seem right to everyone? :scratch

Icebear

Dreadnote wrote: »

If it is then it means when I'm going for max flash output in low lit gyms and other situations, then 1/250 will be the top shutter speed for max flash power otherwise I'm going to get the tail end (T 0.1) of the flash. Which if I remember correctly means I'lll be getting as little as 1/10 total flash power on part of the image.

Does that seem right to everyone?

Aawwww, man. Now I'm confused again. I thought that in hypersync mode you actually set the camera on (say) 1/500th and the PW genie fired the flash without waiting for the 1st curtain to open, meaning that your full power burst was there for the entire time the sensor was exposed.

I hope you're wrong. I'm waiting for someone who knows what s/he's talking about to clear this mud up. Not that you don't, but I hope you don't.

Foques

bump.
I want to know, too.

angevin1

Dreadnote wrote: »

Ok, so I have been playing the relatively new Pocket Wizard Control TL system for Nikon and it strikes me that something slightly odd is happening. Eager to achieve sync speeds faster than the stated 1/320 for my Nikon D300s, I started playing with the Hypersync settings. No matter where I moved the slider I could not sync 1/320. I would always get a black bar at the top about 1/8 inch in width. I could sync 1/400 and 1/500, but not 1/320. So I started thinking about why. It occurred to me that I might get different results if I changed the on camera sync settings. When I moved the setting on camera to sync at 1/250 instead of 1/320, the problem went away and I was able to sync clean all the way to 1/500.

So the question I have is why? Is Nikon already doing the same thing that Pocket Wizard is doing with Hypersync, advancing the flash trigger signal so as to get a faster sync speed? Perhaps the Nikon advance on the signal is pushing the Hypersync advance on the signal right out of the range of the slider when Nikon sync is set to 1/320. It strikes me that if that is so then the D300s really has a true sync speed of 1/250 and not 1/320. I believe that the shutter is the same on the D700, D3s and D3X?

Is that a fair conclusion to make? If it is then it means when I'm going for max flash output in low lit gyms and other situations, then 1/250 will be the top shutter speed for max flash power otherwise I'm going to get the tail end (T 0.1) of the flash. Which if I remember correctly means I'lll be getting as little as 1/10 total flash power on part of the image.

Does that seem right to everyone?

Okay, so High Speed sync is a setting that prolongs flash output by pulsing the light many thousands-of times per-second as long as the Shutters take to go back to closed. do we agree on this?

I think question is, what is happening at 320 ONLY that causes the pocket wizard to freak and not really be in High Speed Sync.

If you use your cameras' on-cam flash, 1/320th sync works, right?
And if you attach a Sb6,8, or 900 to the camera it also Works at 1/320th and right on up, right? losing light as it goes upward?
If so, then High Speed sync is working.

This piece ( Pocket Wizard) you're using, is that with just that piece attached or is it the kind that has a flash on top of it?

I do not claim to be any kind of expert, but am just trying to help by sorting and asking.

Icebear

High-speed-synch and hyper-synch are not the same thing.
Hyper-synch is a creature of the Pocket Wizard whereby the flash actually activates slightly ahead of the shutter, and usually at full power. The flash only fires once.

Dan7312

The PW mini/flex is a radio transmitter/ reciever. What makes it a bit different from most others is that is transmits the flash control info needed for TTL that the Nikon/Canon cameras transmit using light so they support HSS. Most other radio transmitters will send a trigger but don't support HSS.

But Hypersync is a bit different. You can config the delay between the flash and shutter precisely and customize it to match the shutter actuation more closely so that you can shoot above sync speed but still have full flash power. When you you HSS you don't get full power out of the flash, which make Hypersync a useful feature.

angevin1 wrote: »

Okay, so High Speed sync is a setting that prolongs flash output by pulsing the light many thousands-of times per-second as long as the Shutters take to go back to closed. do we agree on this?

I think question is, what is happening at 320 ONLY that causes the pocket wizard to freak and not really be in High Speed Sync.

If you use your cameras' on-cam flash, 1/320th sync works, right?
And if you attach a Sb6,8, or 900 to the camera it also Works at 1/320th and right on up, right? losing light as it goes upward?
If so, then High Speed sync is working.

This piece ( Pocket Wizard) you're using, is that with just that piece attached or is it the kind that has a flash on top of it?

I do not claim to be any kind of expert, but am just trying to help by sorting and asking.

angevin1

Icebear wrote: »

Aawwww, man. Now I'm confused again. I thought that in hypersync mode you actually set the camera on (say) 1/500th and the PW genie fired the flash without waiting for the 1st curtain to open, meaning that your full power burst was there for the entire time the sensor was exposed.

I went and read about Hyper sync, and you are right, it begins firing before the first Shutter even opens.

Dan7312 wrote: »

Hypersync is a bit different. You can config the delay between the flash and shutter precisely and customize it to match the shutter actuation more closely so that you can shoot above sync speed but still have full flash power. When you you HSS you don't get full power out of the flash, which make Hypersync a useful feature.

And you're right Dan. You don't get Full power out of the flash in HSS.

Dreadnote wrote: »

Ok, so I have been playing the relatively new Pocket Wizard Control TL system for Nikon and it strikes me that something slightly odd is happening. Eager to achieve sync speeds faster than the stated 1/320 for my Nikon D300s, I started playing with the Hypersync settings. No matter where I moved the slider I could not sync 1/320. I would always get a black bar at the top about 1/8 inch in width. I could sync 1/400 and 1/500, but not 1/320. So I started thinking about why. It occurred to me that I might get different results if I changed the on camera sync settings. When I moved the setting on camera to sync at 1/250 instead of 1/320, the problem went away and I was able to sync clean all the way to 1/500.

So the question I have is why? Is Nikon already doing the same thing that Pocket Wizard is doing with Hypersync, advancing the flash trigger signal so as to get a faster sync speed? Perhaps the Nikon advance on the signal is pushing the Hypersync advance on the signal right out of the range of the slider when Nikon sync is set to 1/320. It strikes me that if that is so then the D300s really has a true sync speed of 1/250 and not 1/320. I believe that the shutter is the same on the D700, D3s and D3X?

Is that a fair conclusion to make?

And so finding out what I've learned. the OP is confusing two different things. Hypersync, which is a Pocket Wizard patent pending tech, and High-Speed Sync, which is what our Cameras come limited to or equipped with. While the OP may be thinking that Nikon had , just kinda fudged and did their own little Hyper-Sync dance, in reality, according to everything I can read Nikons High-Speed Sync is a pulsing light and in no way would that be the same as what this Hyper Sync seems to be. If it were then Pocket wizard couldn't even say they have a patent pending.

All of this of course is if ya'll concur that I read correctly and understand this much so far correctly.

Still, fleshing out the OP's main complaint is, Apples to oranges to me and What is occurring is The High Speed Sync is trying to pulse the flash and the Hyper Sync is arguing it's case against that wanting to leave the flash as one single early pulse with the result: No Joy; at all!

angevin1

Additionally and in retrospect, I think the OP is onto the fact that the MAX sync is 1/250th

Dreadnote

Just a point of clarification: Nikon cameras can be set to sync at a variety of speeds. One of the options is 1/320s auto FP. According to the manual - "...auto FP high speed sync will be activated if the actual shutter speed is faster than 1/320s." At this setting, according to the manual, the camera should sync without HSS pulsating flashes at 1/320s since the manual states "faster than 1/320s". Pocket Wizard Control TL units, specifically the miniTT1 and flexTT5 allow you to advance the flash trigger signal so as to optimize the flash pulse to the shutter release in order to achieve a higher sync speed without entering auto FP or HSS which are the same thing. The thing that is puzzling me is that with this setting (1/320s auto FP) on my D300s I am unable to get the flash to sync at 1/320s while using my Pocket Wizards set to Hypersync no matter where I move the Hypersync slider that controls the flash signal. The pocket wizards allow you to turn off all HSS functionality which I did while experimenting with Hypersync. So, why? My hypothesis is that nikon is already advancing the flash trigger in order to get on camera or hot shoe mounted flash to sync at 1/320s. However I freely admit I am not in possession of the "missing link" to prove the theory. I just find it puzzling that the problem goes away when you set the on camera flash sync to 1/250s auto FP.

As to the diminished flash output that I previously referred to, I was referring to the output curves associated with the pulse of light that a speed light or studio light produce, not the diminished light caused by low power pulses the HSS or auto FP produce http://photonemesis.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/speedlight-vs-studio-strobe/. If I understand it correctly, Light quickly builds to peak output then decays over time. The decay is over a very short time, but long compared to the amount of time it takes to reach peak power. As a result, depending on when you set the shutter to open using the Hypersync slider, or more precisely when the flash goes off in relation to when the shutter opens, you get the peak of flash output or the very end of flash output or something in the middle. Advancing the flash trigger signal allows for light to be present over the duration of time that the shutter is open BUT it is light further to the right on the output curve and consequently of lesser intensity.

At least I think so, I guess. Does anyone know for sure?

I am interested in this for three reasons, at least three reasons that I can think of at the moment. Reason 1: This would imply that true max output can only be achieved at sync speed, which for Nikon seems to be 1/250s (useful to know depending on what you are doing) and reason 2: the position of the Hypersync slider would be very critical, simply finding a spot where there are not black bars at the top or bottom of the image is not enough, it would seem that the position needs to be "spot on" in order to not "waste" light intensity for any given sync speed. reason 3: or I am completely wrong about all of this and it is simply a firmware problem that needs to be fixed.

angevin1

Dreadnote wrote: »

At least I think so, I guess. Does anyone know for sure?

Have you sent an email to Pocket Wizard Support to ask about your lack of Hyper Synch at 1/320th?

Icebear

Tom's suggestion is a good one, but I still think you're worried about a non-existant problem. Maybe I've got things bassackwards (wouldn't be the first time) but, if you have a dark band at the bottom, wouldn't that mean that the pulse was firing later, rather than earlier? Don't forget, everything is flipped upside down. Would this not mean that you WERE getting the whole of the max intensity pulse?

At this point, this is a bit of an academic question for me, 'cause I'm still considering getting into the PW game. I have four SB800s and SB600s, and major coin is involved. Every time I get close to a purchase decision, some new bit of esoterica bubbles up.

Dan7312

Have loaded the latest firmware from PW? It does contain a number fixes specifically for hypersync.

Dreadnote wrote: »

I am interested in this for three reasons, at least three reasons that I can think of at the moment. Reason 1: This would imply that true max output can only be achieved at sync speed, which for Nikon seems to be 1/250s (useful to know depending on what you are doing) and reason 2: the position of the Hypersync slider would be very critical, simply finding a spot where there are not black bars at the top or bottom of the image is not enough, it would seem that the position needs to be "spot on" in order to not "waste" light intensity for any given sync speed. reason 3: or I am completely wrong about all of this and it is simply a firmware problem that needs to be fixed.

Dan7312

The biggest deal I've found about mini/flex's is the complextity. One switch wrong and you are toast 'till you fix it. Everytime I taken the time to analyze why they didn't fire a flash, instead of just resetting everything, it was because I did something wrong.

Just yesterday they wouldn't fire a flash and it took me a will the realize the batteries had gone low... duh I'm using rechargables now so there is no reason to not start a session with fresh batteries every time which I hadn't done.

So complexity is an issue, but after a while you get things figured out and it's not so bad.

BTW I'm not a pro so I might not be as critical as the rest of you, nor do I get the number of hours behind the camera that you do either.

Icebear wrote: »

Tom's suggestion is a good one, but I still think you're worried about a non-existant problem. Maybe I've got things bassackwards (wouldn't be the first time) but, if you have a dark band at the bottom, wouldn't that mean that the pulse was firing later, rather than earlier? Don't forget, everything is flipped upside down. Would this not mean that you WERE getting the whole of the max intensity pulse?

At this point, this is a bit of an academic question for me, 'cause I'm still considering getting into the PW game. I have four SB800s and SB600s, and major coin is involved. Every time I get close to a purchase decision, some new bit of esoterica bubbles up.

Dreadnote

Icebear wrote: »

but I still think you're worried about a non-existant problem.

Quite possibly true, I simply wanted to have a better understanding of what was really going on so as to be able to more fully utilize it. I don't mean to come across as though it were some big problem that renders the wizards unusable, in point of fact I think they are great. They are able to do things that no other triggers can do. But like you said they cost a lot of cash so I want to know exactly what they are doing to ensure that I am not "missing out" on any functionality. If I have one complaint, it would be this: The provided documentation sucks, as does the incomplete online wiki manual. I like to bury my nose in the book when I get a new toy, and you can't do that with these since all they come with is a couple of lines of quick start guide.

But enough said, Ill shoot over an email to Pocket Wizard and see what they have to say. I just wanted to start here since there are so many people with practical hands on experience with so many things.

Icebear

Dreadnote wrote: »

The provided documentation sucks

Must be written by Nikon.

angevin1

Dreadnote wrote: »

But enough said, Ill shoot over an email to Pocket Wizard and see what they have to say. I just wanted to start here since there are so many people with practical hands on experience with so many things.

I spent quite a bit of time reading yesterday prior to getting deep-er into the discussion. I learned alot. And I think that 1/8th bar you mention, from the flex/linked site where it is discussed in detail, he mentions you have to count on cropping that out. You will not get a completely clear exposed sensor. And the reason why is because it is hyper synch and, as I was informed here, not high speed synch. in fact, now that I re-read your post, I see from what I gather there is no problem with the way it is working for you. That is to be expected.

angevin1

Icebear wrote: »

At this point, this is a bit of an academic question for me, 'cause I'm still considering getting into the PW game. I have four SB800s and SB600s, and major coin is involved. Every time I get close to a purchase decision, some new bit of esoterica bubbles up.

I just bought the gadget infinity version, it is without doubt cheaper to supply these for multi-lights. The only thing I know it doesn't have that would kill it for many folks is zones. The flex lets you control zones (aka-groups in nikonese). Other than that I shot photos with an off-cam SB600 right on up there in the 1/4000th shutter range. SO far range is acceptable for me, and ttl can be controlled via on cam settings with ease...but no zones.

Dan7312

With the AC-3 zone controller you can control pretty everything from the camera, including switching from manual to eTTL and setting level/compensation and turning zones on and off. Now that I have the AC-3 there is no way I would consider getting mini/flex's without it.

angevin1 wrote: »

I just bought the gadget infinity version, it is without doubt cheaper to supply these for multi-lights. The only thing I know it doesn't have that would kill it for many folks is zones. The flex lets you control zones (aka-groups in nikonese). Other than that I shot photos with an off-cam SB600 right on up there in the 1/4000th shutter range. SO far range is acceptable for me, and ttl can be controlled via on cam settings with ease...but no zones.

angevin1

Dan7312 wrote: »

With the AC-3 zone controller you can control pretty everything from the camera, including switching from manual to eTTL

Same with the Infinity: except Zones! I would think zones and compensation of them is a biggie, only thing is, is it worth the extraa $'s.

Icebear

angevin1 wrote: »

Same with the Infinity: except Zones! I would think zones and compensation of them is a biggie, only thing is, is it worth the extraa $'s.

Except the Cactus website says specifically that the V5 does NOT support TTL info. What's that mean?

Dan7312

You mean are the extra dollars for whole PW system or the extra or just for AC-3 as an addon to it. The AC-3 is about $70 so it's kind of a no-brainer to me as an addon.

As far as the whole system... for me it is but I'm very gadget oriented. If I was a pro and always working in a studio I'd take a much close look at Syl Arena's extra long flash cable (though I think they only work for Canon) at http://ocfgear.com/ .

Also besides supporting eTTL, mini/flex also supports second curtain sync, if you care about that.

angevin1 wrote: »

Same with the Infinity: except Zones! I would think zones and compensation of them is a biggie, only thing is, is it worth the extraa $'s.

angevin1

Dan7312 wrote: »

You mean are the extra dollars for whole PW system or the extra or just for AC-3 as an addon to it. The AC-3 is about $70 so it's kind of a no-brainer to me as an addon.

I had no idea it was as an add-on...I'm with you: No brainer!

Dan7312 wrote: »

Also besides supporting eTTL, mini/flex also supports second curtain sync, if you care about that.

Same with the Infinity, the ONLY thing I can find it doesn't have is Zones!

Dan7312

BTW, you don't need the AC-3 to do zones with PW mini/flex, just to control them from the camera.

angevin1 wrote: »

I had no idea it was as an add-on...I'm with you: No brainer!





Same with the Infinity, the ONLY thing I can find it doesn't have is Zones!

angevin1

Dan7312 wrote: »

BTW, you don't need the AC-3 to do zones with PW mini/flex, just to control them from the camera.

Slick! Thanks for the info Dan!

Dan7312

What I meant to say was:D

You don't need to AC-3 to do zones, each flex has a zone setting. You do need a st-e2 or flash to set the ratios.

However to switch between ettl and manual, and set manual levels or turn off zones from the camera you need an AC3.

I forgot that before I got the AC-3 was was using an st-e2 on the mini to adjust zones ...

angevin1 wrote: »

Slick! Thanks for the info Dan!