Posts Tagged ‘high speed sync’

Profoto A1 High Speed Sync and Cherry Blossoms – Tech Tuesday

Woman portrait with cherry blossom background
Woman portrait with cherry blossom background
Falls Church cherry blossom tree in full bloom

Falls Church cherry blossom tree in full bloom

The cherry blossom have been in full bloom around the DC Area. This year, they have been particularly beautiful! They have the light puff ball look with very light colored blooms that really stands out against the bark of the surrounding trees.

Falls Church cherry blossom tree in full bloom

During this time of quarantine, I have been productive in my home studio. But keeping inside means I have not been going out of the house to make many photos. I know there are many projects that you can do while staying at home, but this was the first really purpose-driven photos I have done in a week. I was inspired do these first by the beautiful cherry tree of our neighbor that was in full bloom!

Camera Tech

Camera setup BTS for portrait shoot
Profoto A1, Nikon D850, blooming cherry tree

Next, I wanted to try the Hi Speed Sync options of the Profoto A1 flashes. This is a new piece of gear that I am still learning. I may be replacing all of my lighting gear to Profoto I the near future. If this does in fact come true, I will be sure to make a post about the reasons for it. But for this quick test shoot, I mounted one of the A1 flashes firing into a Westcott Rapid Box Octa with the outer diffusion panel installed. I did not use the deflector plate as the A1 does not completely fit the cut out for the speedlight on the back of the Octabox. The A1 has a circular face at its output and most speedlights are rectangular.

I used another Profoto A1 as a remote controller for the off-camera light, and it worked right away! The flash could keep up at 1/1000th to 1/8000th of a second, and it was still filling the entire frame with an even exposure. I am anxious to try this setup again as I really like the results. The resulting images were much more in balance with the background compared to an exposure without the flash. I was impressed with this first high speed sync experiment with this gear!

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