Hi all,

Have a shoot coming up.
External location.
Daylight.
Using powered flash heads also as extra / fill light (bowens gemini)

Want very shallow depth of field so large aperture so high shutter speed (approx 1000th or similar) even at lowest iso.

Is there any way around the 1/200th snch speed of the canon 5d dslr body with external flash heads aside from stacking up nd filters on the lens?

Thanks.

Marc,

On my 580EX there's a high speed flash sync that goes up to 1/8000th, though i think its at a lower power.

Hope this helps,
Michael

Thanks Michael,
Yes I know with the ex flashes you can shoot at what you want (which is great)...but this is with some location strobes (bowens gemini).

Been doing some more research and its like the x3 nd filter may be the only option. oh well.

Marc

Marc,
You can push the flash sync shutter speed on the Canon EOS 5D (and most Canon DSLRs) just a bit, by using a Pocket Wizard MultiMax Transceived as your transmitter. The MultiMax allows for you to set a specific delay, so that it will delay the RF signal to your receiver and flash system. Depending our how short of a flash duration you are working with, this can allow you to "move" your flash duration (shorter period of time) further into your flash sync shutter speed (longer period of time). Again, this is dependent on your flash duration, as to how effective (if at all) this can be. I have seen this work quite well with all of the EOS 1D/1Ds Series cameras.

Traditionally when you sync with a flash under normal settings, the flash is tripped upon the shutter opening. This delay is tripping the flash shortly after the shutter opens, further "into" the flash sync shutter speed.

Aside from this, your best bet is to use a ton of flash power, and put ND or Polarizing filters on the lens. You will have to raise your flash power, but your filters will help keep the ambient exposure down.

Regards,

Jordan Miller
DTG

Jordan,

How fast of a shutter speed have you been able to achieve with this technique?

Thank you,

*steve

thanks for those tips guys.

the pocket wizard tip is a good one...wonder if I can get my skyports to do the same?

The shoot style has changed slightly so I'll get away with just using an nd filter to hold off two or three stops.

Thanks,

Marc

I have done this with my MultiMax and have only been able to get 1/3 extra stop more flash sync on a 1DII (1/320) which should work the same for other 1D series. The 5D doesn't seem to allow it though. Just can't get past 1/200 and I have worked on the MM manual settings down to .0001 adjustments.

Marc, if you read any of the high speed flash hacking posts on Strobist then you can get the best info for doing this. Fact is Canon shutters seem not to work as best for sync hacking but Nikon shutters can allow upwards of 1/1000 possibly with a little frame cutoff though.

Your best choice is probably a 3 stop ND filter but focusing and viewing will get tough.

There are some techniques which will give you a more shallow f-stop. Have the sun behind the subject along with an ND filter and you should be able to get somewhere around F4.0. Also regardless of what the techies say, shooting at 50 ISO on a Canon is very useful when needing to get DOF shallow with outdoor studio flash sync. I've done it many times.