I didn't realise you were trying to beat the sun, so this comment might be relevant - you won't do it.
They don't support high speed sync.
Not really, unless he slaps 7 stops of ND over his lens and buys about 20 YN460-II flashes (the extra 200mm zoom vs. the fixed 35mm position of the YN460-II makes a HUGE difference).but even a couple (maybe 3) YN460s at full power will be better than an sb900 doing the trick HSS thing.
This summer I used several SB-900s & SB-600s.Go for balancing rather than nuking the sun, much nicer to have the sky balanced imo, if I wanted to shoot at night, I'd do just that... autumn time you can often get away with a couple speedlights, whereas this summer I've had to use about 1000ws just to balance a group of 4 with the sky.
Plenty of others have. With Canon you might not be able to do it.
Not with *A* hotshoe flash no, but with several, sure.Realistically, there is no way you will beat full mid day sun with a hot shoe gun. Not even with Nikon.
No, I don't think that was a joke, as there's a particular set of training videos on Kelby Training that Joe also did dedicated to using AutoFP High Speed Sync mode, and plenty of other examples where he's used AutoFP.The only way you have a chancve is by using multiple guns at very close distance, as per that McNally situation (which I'm sure he only ever did as a joke).
The actual light output is not increased.
Sorry, I may have mis-understod your question. I thought you were using TTL and it was over exposing, so if you just set the +/- dial to -2/3, it would help
This might be worth a shot on the cheap, go to a Car/Auto store, buy a few windscreen/dash reflectors, (to stop the dash from melting in hot countries and keep the car cooler) join together with a couple of bits or wood/brush shaft, job done for a fraction of the price of photographic reflector.
does it have to be sb900's?
if your on a budget can you not get a bank of cheap chinese flashguns?
Then upgrade your kit as you go along...?
Yes, basically due to the way the camera shutters work, the sync on Nikon bodies is limit to 1/250th, with Canon bodies, anywhere from 1/60-1/250 depending on stuff (I dunno, you'd have to ask a Canon owner).
Beyond 1/250th in AutoFP high speed sync mode, your flash is sending out pulses of flashes so that it can provide even exposure across the entire scene (which is why you lose a couple of stops, because your flash would simply blow up if it tried to do full power pops for the duration).
ok thanks makes sense.
Im looking forward to getting the sb900 now
wail, with regards to reflators etc have you considered making a diy reflective box to put over the flash heads to direct all the light at the subject?
minimising light loss...?
I didn't realise you were trying to beat the sun, so this comment might be relevant - you won't do it.
Rule of thumb with full mid-day sun here (sunny 16 rule) is that you need 400ws of flash to even have a chance. Even then it's marginal if you want room to manoevre with different light shapers and some flexibility with distance. A good hotshoe gun has about 60ws, and on high speed sync it will be a fraction of that, dropping to insignificant at very high shutter speeds.
If you want to fight bright sun, then you need masses of studio flash power and a stack of ND filters to get the shutter speed down to the max x-sync. It's like pushing water uphill.
Being realistic, a huge silver reflector is your best option and if you're careful to select a darker background while angling the reflector to direct the sun most efficiently, that's probably as close as you'll get. But conversely, when the sun gets lower and the light level with it, you're options are greatly increased.
Plenty of others have. With Canon you might not be able to do it.
but even a couple (maybe 3) YN460s at full power will be better than an sb900 doing the trick HSS thing.
Go for balancing rather than nuking the sun, much nicer to have the sky balanced imo, if I wanted to shoot at night, I'd do just that... autumn time you can often get away with a couple speedlights, whereas this summer I've had to use about 1000ws just to balance a group of 4 with the sky.
Not really, unless he slaps 7 stops of ND over his lens and buys about 20 YN460-II flashes (the extra 200mm zoom vs. the fixed 35mm position of the YN460-II makes a HUGE difference).
This summer I used several SB-900s & SB-600s.
Balancing the sky vs. nuking the sun is really a matter for the photographer (and their potential client) to determine and the effect they're after. What other people think of what they want to do isn't really an issue.
Comment on how flash guns work.
High Speed Sync (FP Sync) strobes the flash at incredibly high speed, like 50,000 per sec, so it effectively becomes continuous light. It keeps this up for the duration of the full shutter cycle so that you can use any shutter speed. The power is limited by the capacitor that can only deliver the same amount of charge and with HSS this is spread over a few hundred much smaller pulses. How many of these pulses you actually capture depends on your shutter speed and at very high speeds it's no more than a dozen or so and the vast majority of the gun's output is simply wasted.
On the zoom head thing, that is a way of narrowing the beam of light so that it is concentrated into a smaller but brighter pool. The actual light output is not increased. It makes a useful difference when using a longer lens when clearly you don't want or need the light spread over a wide area of the scene, but the design of the zoom heads is not very efficient and the benefit falls some way short of what you might expect from the inverse square law theory.
Realistically, there is no way you will beat full mid day sun with a hot shoe gun. Not even with Nikon.
The only way you have a chancve is by using multiple guns at very close distance, as per that McNally situation (which I'm sure he only ever did as a joke).
Tomas Whitehouse had a long thread about this and he ended up with studio heads running off a petrol generator.
<snip>
No, I don't think that was a joke, as there's a particular set of training videos on Kelby Training that Joe also did dedicated to using AutoFP High Speed Sync mode, and plenty of other examples where he's used AutoFP.
Just so i get this right in my head...
The sun is very bright, and due to this would cause various issues with the image as the model would be a shadow and the sun very bright.
So you need to throw enough light onto the model to balance out the brightness of the sun?
As in get pretty close to ambient light as possible so that the image is equally exposed?
And due to this extreme amount of light you then need a very high shutterspeed and low iso and high aperture in order to actually take the picture....
being such a high shutterspeed you then need more flashes as the actual output of the flash is lower because its making hundreds of pulses of slightly low powered light? thus, needing even more flashguns...
Glamour in the desert in Saudi?????
I thought it was a public stoning to show a bit of calf there??????
Either way you're best metering them with the histogram (which is obviously a little tricky given your circumstances).
You wouldn't be able to adjust their power manually individually as such (unless you stick with just 3 flashes) if you're wanting to do high speed sync as you'd have to use CLS.
You will be able to adjust the power of different groups manually, and each group and be a group of one flash, but generally, if you've got 2 or 4 or more flashes sitting in a particular spot all clumped together, you want them all firing at the sme power anyway, so that'd be one group.
If you were able to keep within your camera's sync speed of 1/250, then you could use radio triggers and set each flash individually (but it would require somebody physically being at the flashes to adjust the power, with CLS you can do it all from the camera itself or the flash/SU-800 on the hotshoe).
I would say probably the price - although now I'd look at the YN560 over the YN460-II as you can zoom the head to 105mm for a bit more punch.I haven't the faintest clue about YN460s, would you be kind enough to elaborate as to why you believe these to be better than SB900?
lol, not quite a Christmas tree yet. The SB-600 of mine I had there has since died, and the other SB-600 and one of the SB-900s were CGeezer's, hehe. But, I do plan on picking up more over the coming months.It would cost me close to £2500 to get my SB900 collection up to 8; not something I'm keen on doing. Not right now. However, if I can pull something off, something interesting and satisfying, then that may justify me going forward with more expenses of that magnitude; but for now, I will just sit and envy your Christmas tree collection of Speedlights
You might wanna be careful using words like "nuke" and "Saudi Arabia" in the same sentence.I'll try both, just for the fun of being able to say I'm trying to nuke the sun from Saudi Arabia
I *think* it's this one.Could you please post me a link to the Kelby Training you mention.
<snip>
You might wanna be careful using words like "nuke" and "Saudi Arabia" in the same sentence.
Just so i get this right in my head...
The sun is very bright, and due to this would cause various issues with the image as the model would be a shadow and the sun very bright.
So you need to throw enough light onto the model to balance out the brightness of the sun?
As in get pretty close to ambient light as possible so that the image is equally exposed?
And due to this extreme amount of light you then need a very high shutterspeed and low iso and high aperture in order to actually take the picture....
being such a high shutterspeed you then need more flashes as the actual output of the flash is lower because its making hundreds of pulses of slightly low powered light? thus, needing even more flashguns...
the PWs increase the power of each HSS pulse according to the shutter speed selected, so they are more efficient.
I *may* be wrong, but I was under the impression that's how Nikon's AutoFP high speed sync worked too.
<snip>
Wail, there's a guy on here who posts in the Glamour section, Jason Cole, who shoots a lot of flash in bright sun in Oz. Superb stuff on his website http://www.colestudios.com.au/magazine_model_photography/ He uses a stack of expensive Broncolor studio lights powered by battery generators, and by the looks, he waits for the sun to go down a bit