Frozen motion in the studio.

[I @ M]

Specifically for anyone that wants to venture into high speed synch with studio strobes.
Forget the rest, just grab some Pocket Wizards.
This may appear a bit Nikon specific because that is what we own.
We have owned the MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 transmitters / transceivers for a while now and used them at fairly low shutter speeds with success. ( 1/250 – 1/1000)
The other day, because I had some spare time and a subject that could jump I upgraded the firmware and tried to fine tune the hyper synch function of the pocket wizards to the fastest possible speed.
The fine tuning occurs with the transceivers plugged into the PC and the delay slider in the Pocket Wizard Utility adjusted to achieve the correct balance between front curtain and rear curtain shutter showing at higher than normal x synch speeds. It takes a bit of experimentation to get there but after six or so static shots and three animated shots I concluded that they were good enough for me at maximum shutter speed (1/8000) to allow for usable images.
Please ignore the subject matter as it was all done with a brief of being able to see shutter curtain shadow intruding into the image at high speed. The only creative input was limited to telling Alex to “jump and fast , but please don’t look like a total wally while you do” ---- dunno if we succeeded there or not. :D
The exif is in the shot but the full details are
1x 400WS monobloc at ½ power
ISO200 , 1/8000, F/4
There is a tiny amount of rear curtain showing in that ( and any number of totally repeatable shots ) but nothing that can’t be easily dealt with in post processing either via filling or cropping.
Totally freezing motion can be handy in some studio scenarios just as showing some motion can be desirable in others but if you want to stop any subject movement totally these triggers are the way to go.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9582534/PW1-8000.JPG

[Lani]

I have been experimenting with this very thing today too, and am super impressed, although I am not totally sure how to adjust the slider for fine tuning, there doesn't seem to be much documentation as to how to do it? I have also combined my speedlights and DLite 4's...got up to 1/1000th sec....a huge improvement from the 1/250th sec I used to get.

[Wayne]

Yep, they work great outdoors for freezing motion right up to about 1/1500 out of the box, I haven't used them higher than that so far.

[I @ M]

Lani, my understanding of the work that has been done with the PWs is to replicate the delay / advance in timing between the shutter actuation and the flash fire signal in the camera that Nikon have built in to work with their own speedlights. The fine tuning ability with the PW utility revolves around the needs of 3rd party strobes and the big factor there appears to be the flash duration of those strobes. Apparently the PW units work at their best with strobes with a long (ish) flash duration so each brand / model of light will be slightly different depending on that flash duration. There is a video out there on the 'net made by PW showing the hyper synch tuning and I have watched and remembered most of it but I cannot find it again. When time allows I will do screen grab/s of the utility with the settings I have figured out for our lights, that might be easier to show the various parts rather than lots of typing. :D

Wayne, I didn't meter the ambient light coming through the windows at the time that I took these shots but it was somewhere around 1.00 pm on a (rare at the moment) mostly clear day and I would estimate that correct exposure at that aperture would have been around the 1/2000 mark so even with modestly powered lights overcoming or at least subduing ambient light should be within reach outdoors under the right conditions.

[Lani]

Thanks Andrew, yep I saw that when I was deciding whether or not to get them, but after much searching, haven't found it again.
Screen grabs would be handy, at least to give me a starting point. From what I understand, the d lites are fairly slow, so that may mean I can get a pretty fast ss.

[Shelley]

Thanks for that, I had been thinking about pocket wizards for a while. I need one for each light don't I?

I love movement in my photos, so I am very interested.

[I @ M]

Shelley, the Pocket Wizard system allows for a few combinations of receivers / transceivers and the units we are using are the MiniTT1 as a trigger and the FlexTT5 as receivers. The FlexTT5 is a transceiver, meaning that it can be used as either receiver or transmitter but as an on camera trigger it is rather bulky.
The units above have the advantage that they can also be used as off camera speedlight controllers allowing radio controlled TTL metering with compatible speedlights.

They are a very multi faceted product and in combination with their other products give very good remote control of strobes and speedlights.
As for the need for a receiver per light --- If using them to trigger remote speedlights in TTL mode I would say that they would need to attached to each speedlight in use but as a studio strobe trigger I imagine ( haven't actually tried yet ) that one trigger and one receiver should be sufficient if your 2nd or more lights can be triggered optically from the first light. I don't actually know if radio signals move faster than light but if they do I would imagine that the difference in speed would be pretty small. :confused013

The other thing is that they don't seem to be a one setting suits all unit and as they say in their ( hard to find ) tutorials / manuals it is best to tune the delay in triggering for high speed synch to the shutter speed that you wish to use. I have found that having them set to 1/500th does not ensure that they work shutter curtain shadowless at 1/8000 and vice versa.
I don't see that as a major drawback though as if frozen action is what you want a shutter speed of around 1/2000 is pretty well able to guarantee that.
The ability to shoot at ridiculously high shutter speeds would be very handy in situations where you would want to overcome, or at least dim down ambient light such as bright sunshine outside on static or moving subjects and one would set the triggers to a synch speed that you needed for each scenario.
The settings that you adjust the triggers to can be saved as a configuration file within the Pocket Wizard utility and recalled and applied to the units by connecting the units to the pc and changing the setting file. Once you have experimented and configured the units for different shutter speeds each setting can be saved as a nameable file to recall easily.

I am still trying to find the time to do some screen grabs to show how I have managed to configure our strobes with the utility ----- :crossed:

[Shelley]

Thanks Andrew - I will watch with interest what you get up to. I have been reading heaps on triggering and practising with my lights.

If I buy from Digitalrev - will I get the right ones for Australia?

[I @ M]

If I buy from Digitalrev - will I get the right ones for Australia?

According to their product page which lists a few combination packages of triggers / receivers (http://www.digitalrev.com/product/pocketwizard-flex-tt5-for-canon/NzYyOA_A_A) all the units are 433.42 - 434.42 MHz, CE Frequency which is the legal one for Australia.

[Lani]

Shelley,I am using a mini TT1 on camera as a trigger, and have used a flex tt5 on an SB900, which triggers my d lite 4's...haven't tried it with the other speedlight, but am assuming I will need to use the other flex on that, as I used to do with my skyports.

[Shelley]

Thanks Lani.

[I @ M]

Better late than never I guess. I finally got around to doing some screen grabs of the PW configuration panel as I have it set for 1/8000 ss with the studio lights that we have.
As I mentioned previously, this setting may or may not work at lower shutter speeds than 1/8000 and above x - synch and a new profile will have to be loaded but once again, once you have experimented with the settings and have them to your satisfaction, each and every saved profile can be reloaded to the units very easily.

The hyper synch panel ( image #3 ) is the one that needs to be experimented with and the choice of the drop downs to select the type of strobe unit and the flash duration were trialled in conjunction with the offset slider until the -700 figure gave me the desired shutter curtain free image.

Hope this helps some.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9582534/PW1.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9582534/PW2.png

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9582534/PW3.png

[Shelley]

Just sitting here with my pocket wizards which I got today. I ended up getting 2 FlexTT5, one mini-tt1 and AC3 zone controller. I have been fortunate with money from a couple of shoots and prizes in comps. to get this.

More stuff to learn and play with - sometimes I think my head explodes with information overload. :)

[Wayne]

I recently got the AC3 as well, and it is invaluable for mixing the Ranger RX system with speedlights.

[Shelley]

That is why I went for it Wayne and that is very good to hear - thanks.