Off camera flashes syncing past 1/320sec - strobist

I'm shooting with markIII so I know 1/300 is my limit for syncing with flash.

But I'm looking at a shot right now and it came out perfectly. (well the settings did, but the shot was an accidental test shot)

Here are settings

85mm
ISO 50
f/4.0
1/320sec

I'm guessing there is no light falloff because I'm shooting outside and the light falloff that would occur is not part of the subject and just falling off on the background that is already properly exposed in camera. Don't know if I'm making any sense.

Does anyone know the max shutter speed for using off camera flashes? I'm using mkIII + PW's + 3-sb28's

background is properly exposed, the subject is well lit by flashes, dof separates the subject from the background very well. A surprising mistake

1/125th is the safe speed with studio strobes. Sometimes you get lucky and you can sync faster, sometimes not.

Canon's spec sheet lists the maximum flash sync speed at 1/250 with studio strobes. You might be able to squeeze that a bit, but check the top and bottom of the frame.

Not talking studio strobes, I'm talking small strobes (nikon speedlites).

I was shooting two people against the sun direcly overhead. The worst possible time of day to shoot. And my people we DIRECTLY in the sun.

I had the subjects put their back to the sun so they weren't squinting, in doing so if I shoot them with only on camera flash they are still not fully lit so I was using 3 small speedlites to light the subjects evenly. The test shot came out great and I just realized I was shooting 1/320 at f/4. Crazy! Never thought it would work but the subjects are lit perfectly and the separation from the background is great!

Just curious to see if anyone has shot faster than 1/320 using off camera speedlites or am I just a lucky genious!??
And I know it's possible to use faster sync speeds, don't give me a stupid reply like "of course it can be done but you can't see the light from the strobes"..
The quesiton I'm asking is if you can use faster sync speeds and still reap the benefits of using the off camera speedlites.
Keep in mind I'm using 1DmarkIII I know it has a 1/300 on camera flash sync speed.

Faster shutter could come in very useful if it's possible. :crosses fingers:

Wow

1/8000 to 30 sec. (1/3-, 1/2- or 1-stop increments), X-sync at 1/250 sec. (with EOS dedicated external Speedlites; 1/250 maximum with other shoe-mount flashes, and 1/60th-1/250th with studio strobes*)

I must have a super cool mk3 then!!!

someone tell me to prove 1/300 sync speed with on camera flash so I can whip out my camera...

Ok so I was starting to think I am going crazy thinking that my camera can fire on camera flash at 1/300 sec when I just read that max is 1/250 so I did a test.

Maybe my camera is the bomb or something because it worked!

Sorry for:
- the lighting in my place isn't the best (only have one small tungsten light in my camera room).
- And I was too lazy to switch to another lens so I used the 70-200 f/2.8L IS. Probably the worst lens to use hand held in this condition, but i did it anyways.
- Shooting at f/2.8 at 1/300 with flash at +3. I think ISO was somewhere around 3200 so it's noise city.
- oh well just a proof shot not going for any awards...

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It's probably just a matter of where the "dark rectangle" is falling. Take your strobes inside, point them at a wall, and just try shooting it at faster and faster shutter speeds. You'll see that as you exceed your max sync speed, you start to see a black bar, where the shutter curtain is still in place when the flash goes off. If you compose things right, you can eek out a little extra shutter speed outdoors by only putting the light on the part that still gets exposed when you push your shutter speed a little over the limit

Using E-TTL, you can use the High-speed Synch setting and go right up to the 1/8000th, but of course there is no ETTL when using PWs.

The X-Synch speed of 1/250th is the guaranteed minimum timelapse for the shutter curtains to be fully open. It is quite possible that a particular unit on a particular occasion could be fully open at 1/320th, but for any regular use it would seem an unwise practice.

Have you checked the raw image for evidence of shutter-shadow at top or bottom? (Jpegs are not much use for evaluating this as it is produced by a blurring/smudging algorithm for printing in newspapers at 72dpi!

Luck is good, but not for building a reputation on.

Added: There is "no" flash when using the PWs, so the camera does not implement its programmed controls for the X-Synch. You are on you own.

CliveyBoy wrote in post #6262279
Using E-TTL, you can use the High-speed Synch setting and go right up to the 1/8000th, but of course there is no ETTL when using PWs.

The X-Synch speed of 1/250th is the guaranteed minimum timelapse for the shutter curtains to be fully open. It is quite possible that a particular unit on a particular occasion could be fully open at 1/320th, but for any regular use it would seem an unwise practice.

Have you checked the raw image for evidence of shutter-shadow at top or bottom? (Jpegs are not much use for evaluating this as it is produced by a blurring/smudging algorithm for printing in newspapers at 72dpi!

Luck is good, but not for building a reputation on.

1/8000th using high speed sync?
I guess I have to do some reading!

Yeah no ETTL using PW's I understand that much.

x-sync is that for on camera flash and off camera, or just off camera flash?

I don't know what "shutter shadow" is?

Here are some more samples. I had an idea someone would suggest maybe I used ambient light to light up my last shot (even though i was shooting at 1/300 sec hehe) because I was shooting at ISO3200 so I took some shots using DIRECT FLASH and a dropping my ISO to fully blow out the scene. Then I raised my aperture to a more suitable range to get a more properly lit image at 1/300sec using on camera flash.

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CliveyBoy wrote in post #6262279
Added: There is "no" flash when using the PWs, so the camera does not implement its programmed controls for the X-Synch. You are on you own.

I'm not sure I follow. I'm a strobist noob

Edit: Oh i gotcha. You're saying that there is no limit to how fast you can raise your shutter speed when you are using PW's because the cameras x-sync controls are not implemented. Right?

Yes I know this, that's how I shot that one photo at 1/320 sec with strobes. That's kinda the whole point of this thread, I didn't know the flash would still have an effect on the subject/scene at that fast of a shutter speed. And I was curious to see if light would still travel fast enough if the shutter speed was jacked up even higher than 1/320sec.

When the camera's shutter speed exceeds its sync speed, you will see the shutter as an unexposed bar at the bottom of the frame.

See this example:

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My shot was at 1/640s on a 20D. If I was outside ans was only using flash to illuminate my wife's upper body and our cat with ambient exposing the rest of the image, you wouldn't even know I was way faster than my max sync speed.

Here is a shot at 1/320s. No HSS on this, it is an old Vivitar 2600D mounted on my 20D's hotshoe. This is mounted to my camera though, not on a radio trigger.

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DDCSD wrote in post #6262504
My shot was at 1/640s on a 20D. If I was outside ans was only using flash to illuminate my wife's upper body and our cat with ambient exposing the rest of the image, you wouldn't even know I was way faster than my max sync speed.

Here is a shot at 1/320s. No HSS on this, it is an old Vivitar 2600D mounted on my 20D's hotshoe. This is mounted to my camera though, not on a radio trigger.

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Radio triggers will reduce your sync capabilities a bit. PW's won't slow you down too much though.

I guess then my question for you is.

Can you go faster than 1/320 since you're not using ETTL?
And how much faster can you go without light falloff and or the strobe being ineffective?

Adaptive wrote in post #6262586
I guess then my question for you is.

Can you go faster than 1/320 since you're not using ETTL?
And how much faster can you go without light falloff and or the strobe being ineffective?

Any faster than 1/320 with that flash on my 20D and I would start to get the shutter creeping into the shot. At 1/400s you could just see it at the bottom, at 1/500s it was halfway between the bottom of the frame and where you see it on the 1/640s shot I posted. Unfortunately I either deleted the other shots or have them hidden somewhere on my back-up hard drive. I'll do the test again tonight if I get a chance. Those shots were from March.

This is something I often insert into these discussions.

Even the best quality shutters do not deliver exactly the setting shown on the dial.

So the shutter speeds may not be quite what you think they are.

Enjoy! Lon