What Triggers Are Best For HSS?

I have been hearing about triggers being able to have High Speed Syncing capabilities that would allow your flash to fire faster than 1/250th of a second... Is this true, or is this a myth. If it is true, what are the best HSS triggers for the money and why? Thanks a million and one.

To get HSS your only options are:

1. Canon
2. Pocket Wizard Flex & Mini
3. Radiopopper

From what I understand PW uses different method of achieving HSS (they call it hypersync) and you don't lose flash power, unless HSS. I might be wrong on this though.

Hyper sync is different.
It is a Pocket Wizard "feature" that permits pre-firing the monolight to use the tail of the flash as illumination.

With the Control TL system Hyper sync can be used in conjunction with High Speed Sync.

Both reduce the maximum available output because either the light is "strobing" (HSS) to extend the time the light is contributing to exposure, or only part of the output is being used because the flash fires early (Hyper Sync).

Here is a page on my tutorial site describing what I discovered while experimenting with Control TL, Calumet Genesis 300B, and Hyper Sync.

You need an ETTL-compatible trigger (Pixel TTR, PW Flex/Mini, RadioPopper PX, Canon ST-E2) and an ETTL hotshoe flash.

PW Hypersync lets you do something similar with non-hotshoe flashes (monolights, heads).

taknbyd wrote in post #10442350
I have been hearing about triggers being able to have High Speed Syncing capabilities that would allow your flash to fire faster than 1/250th of a second... Is this true, or is this a myth. If it is true, what are the best HSS triggers for the money and why? Thanks a million and one.

looking at your gear list

your two 430ex II are ideal to work with the PW system

I would run - don't walk and pick up the PW mini for your camera and the 2 flexes for your flashes.

To be honest I really hate to admit this but I honestly never use ETTL... And to be even more honest I really don't know what it even means. Mainly because I have always used manual on everything from my camera to my flashes.

Now what I have been reading is that the hyper sync is mainly just getting the tale end of the flash, which in return means not the full power. I am pretty confused as to what I would need for the equipment that I have. My main thing is that I just think that being able to use a flash at high sync speeds will open up a lot of opportunities for me as to my style of photography. I love to shoot on-site as you can see from my webpage. But when it comes to all the technical stuff, I guess I am a little behind on the learning curve.

taknbyd wrote in post #10442997
To be honest I really hate to admit this but I honestly never use ETTL...

Obviously you never used flash over 1/250 sync speed. with HSS, you can go up to 1/8000.

Personally, I use PW. Love it!

The nature of flash lights is a burst of light.
To accomplish that the shutter has to be completely clear of the sensor.
That dictates the max sync speed of a camera.
If the combination of ISO, Av and Tv (at or less than sync speed) do not provide a good exposure you have to do something.
HSS permits using a Canon proprietary protocol to strobe the Speedlite to compensate for the shutter curtains moving across the sensor. Since the Speedlite is strobing it can not provide a full power burst.
The other option, made possible with Hyper Sync, is to use the less than full power tail of a monolight that extends long enough for the shutter slit to cover the sensor. The disadvantage is that since the light is diminishing over time, the illumination is uneven.

Your choices are manual below sync speed, manual with HSS, or manual with Hyper Sync. It all takes some experimentation and testing. Just like everything else.

The Pixel TR-332 TTL trigger would provide:
Manual setting of power levels on the 430EXIIs from the Controller;
Canon HSS automatically with both TTL and Manual settings;
Hypersync with the 430EXII flashes. (Useful for shutter speeds shorter than about 1/1000th.)
With them you can try all three of David's choices, plus trying E-TTL II.

I just want to say thank you to all of you who have provided me with the insight as to what the hell to go for and how the hell to go about doing so. You all ROCK... Thanks..

Be aware that the so-called "hypersync" method is quite different from any other lighting in that there is no handheld meter that can provide you with exposure settings. This is because the film/sensor "sees" only a portion of the light put out by the flash source while a meter would "see" all of the light. In other words, establishing exposure settings that result in a good image will be purely experimental in the beginning. Once you've established the setting for a given location and power level of the light(s), that will be repeatable but you can never use a meter to come up with the proper camera settings (without making some radical changes to the meter reading values).

Skip has a good point about metering.
On the page I linked to above all the exposure values were established using the blinkies on the camera LCD to determine optimum exposure with the MacBeth Color Checker.

good video from Mark Wallace.

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=l-BD_xD43oA