Small Flash: High-Speed Sync

Step Three

We need to get our light out there and sync it at our ideal setting of 1/1600 so we can keep that background at bay with our wider apertures. In this instance, I used an SB-800 Speedlight and a PocketWizard FlexTT5 with Auto FP mode stillenabled on my Nikon D700 camera. This lets the PocketWizard do its thing, which is firing the flash remotely and tricking it into thinking it’s still atop my camera, allowing it to sync at speeds above 1/250. This could have been achieved by using a TTL cable, as well. 

It sounds too easy, right? There’s a trade-off when we break the sync barrier for more creative control. For every stop that we go over our max. sync speed, the flash’s power output drops a good deal. To overcome this power loss, we simply move the flash in closer to our subject. You’ll see that we still have plenty of power and our model’s face is actually overexposed.