Pushing the sync speed - Canon 5d MK II/2 beyond the 1/200 to 1/2000

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After receiving my new 5D MK II just before christmas I was a bit disappointed with the sync speed. With my old 40d I could happily use 1/250 and if I was prepared to loose a bit of the bottom of the shot I could go beyond this to 1/320, which for outdoor shooting was great. I mostly shoot with Canon 540ezs because they are cheap and the power is pretty good, but I recently invested in some Bowens 500s for a bit more juice and because I have been setting up a bit of indoor space as a studio.

Armed with my Pocket Wizards, the 5d and my Bowens I could only consistently get 1/160 without any banding which is pretty rubbish and is not very practical for the outdoor shoots. So I started to play around with my 430ex set to high speed sync (this shows as a flash symbol with a H sign on it on the flash display) attached to the hotshoe, I also set the camera to operate in high speed sync and this is then pointed at the Bowens which have an inbuilt optical trigger and with my amazement I could go past 1/200 and onward up to 1/2000. I have only tested this indoors (and I won’t be winning any awards for the quality of the composition) but from the shots below you can see that there is no visible banding and that the Bowens is producing all of the light in the picture. I need to try it outdoors once it stops raining but am pretty hopeful that this may be a solution.

All at f/5 and ISO 200

1/200 Ambient Only (not a lot to see)

1/200 Ambient Only (not a lot to see)

 

1/125 430ex on Camera only

1/125 430ex on Camera only

1/2000 430ex and Bowens 500

1/1000 430ex and Bowens 500

1/2000 430ex and Bowens 500

1/2000 430ex and Bowens

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Permalink | January 11th, 2009

2 Responses to “Pushing the sync speed - Canon 5d MK II/2 beyond the 1/200 to 1/2000”

  1. Jara Says:
    July 24th, 2009 at 11:26 pm

    Hi,

    I am exactly in the same situation - trying to work out how to get faster sync speed. I have one more trick for you - buy an optical trigger cube (about 5 USD) and attach it to the transmitter and connect the flash (or Bowen in your case) to the receiver. Now set 430ex to HSS and 1/64, point it up and put the optical trigger cube with transmitter in front of it. With 30D you can get super fast sync times - up to 1/8000. I have only Ebay triggers so I can not test this with proper triggers. Unfortunately with these triggers the whole frame gets so dim this technique is unusable. Could you try it with PWs?

    Thanks

  2. Jara Says:
    July 24th, 2009 at 11:56 pm

    It would be useful to see a pic taken at 1/160 to compare how much light was lost…

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