ND Filter vs Hypersync vs HSS

I'll start off with my gear:
Canon 5D Mark III
Lens: usually Canon 135L F2 or Sigma 85mm f1.4

I've been shooting outdoors for a while now, especially at beaches. I usually place a model on the sand, under the shade of the tree with the ocean in the background. I use an ND filter + an Alien Bee B1600 to shoot at f1.4, ISO 100, Shutter 1/200. With the ND filter, I can darken the bg and have the model slightly brighter to stand out. I also love having the background completely blurred. So f2.0 is usually the aperture, which is difficult to do in bright sunlight and keeping shutter at sync speed.

However, with that current method, my ND filter is often so dark that the viewfinder is also very dark and I sometimes can't even see the model's face anymore, so focusing gets difficult. Lots of misfocused shots.

I'm looking at other options.

What do you guys think of Hypersync?
I've been reading on Pocket Wizards and how they can be set to use Hypersync. I understand power is lost since the picture is taken usually at the tail end of the flash.

What about HSS (High Speed Sync)?
Speedlights are out of the question as I'll need a ton of speedlights to even equal a B1600.
I know there are other monolights out there that have HSS, recommend any?

Heya,

What strength ND are you having to go? 6~7 stop ND at F1.4? 5~6 at F2 for what you like?

It may be time to go HSS.

There are tricks to try to make your AB1600 work as a hypersync, but I would just move to something bullet proof if you want to beat down the sun, portable, with HSS.

Godox AD600 Wistro or the Flashpoint XPLOR600 or the Cheetah CL-600X.

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #18102420
Heya,

What strength ND are you having to go? 6~7 stop ND at F1.4? 5~6 at F2 for what you like?

It may be time to go HSS.

There are tricks to try to make your AB1600 work as a hypersync, but I would just move to something bullet proof if you want to beat down the sun, portable, with HSS.

Godox AD600 Wistro or the Flashpoint XPLOR600 or the Cheetah CL-600X.

Very best,

I have a Hoya Variable ND, which is 1.5 stops to 9 stops. I often have it set to at 6 stops at least.
I've just spent the past several hours reading up on the flashpoint xplor600. I think I may be in love LOL. Everyone has only good things to say about it so far.

When you are at full power with Godox AD600 CL6000X flash you can put on the XTR-16 and you win almost an extra stop of flash power.
You need then to switch of the blinking light (HSS).

mmmfotografie wrote in post #18102671
When you are at full power with Godox AD600 CL6000X flash you can put on the XTR-16 and you win almost an extra stop of flash power.
You need then to switch of the blinking light (HSS).

So, is that doing a version of Supersync - long duration style high shutter speed sync - not pulsing - complete with gradient? Tx

You need to use the pre-sync so that you have a flash starting before the opening of the shutter. You maybe have to adjust the timing on the transmitter. The flash is long enough to have no gradient if you have the timing correct.

https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=18046096

You can see in the histogram, made available by mousing over the left down corner and click on the word histogram when it appears , for the extra punch.

mmmfotografie wrote in post #18102671
When you are at full power with Godox AD600 CL6000X flash you can put on the XTR-16 and you win almost an extra stop of flash power.
You need then to switch of the blinking light (HSS).

Based on my test with other strobe, there is no severe gradient or fall off if I use crop sensor camera like 60D or 1D iv. But for full frame camera like 5D ii, the fall off is noticable.

A 3-stop filter won't slow your focusing down too much in full sun. You can always mix the two techniques and shoot around 1/500 with the 3-stop if you need to get down to 1.4. It will depend on the individual strobe and timing, but I get a little more than a stop more power when using an ND filter over hyper syncing my Mettle 600w strobes.

I do get a gradient with hyper sync. It's annoying for studio work, but I literally never notice it outdoors with bright ambient.

nixland wrote in post #18103121
Based on my test with other strobe, there is no severe gradient or fall off if I use crop sensor camera like 60D or 1D iv. But for full frame camera like 5D ii, the fall off is noticable.

Despite what the metadata states this was a full frame sensor.