[akomlik]

I assumed the same after reading the manual but decided to check various combinations in practice.

It worked fine in the dark room or outside and in fully lit room even with paddle up.
I have not tested this outside with sun but that'd require HSS capable second flash on a hot shoe anyways.

For the completeness of this mini-study I'll do more testing outside on a bright day and report later.

again interesting i though the paddle had to be down, that's what the manual shows, I assumed that the paddle being down had something to do with the capturing or seeing the IR transmission in order to convert it to a radio signal.

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Last edited by akomlik; 12-05-2013 at 09:23 AM.

[adwb]

I assumed the same after reading the manual but decided to check various combinations in practice.

It worked fine in the dark room or outside and in fully lit room even with paddle up.
I have not tested this outside with sun but that'd require HSS capable second flash on a hot shoe anyways.

For the completeness of this mini-study I'll do more testing outside on a bright day and report later.

? what ? how are you going to get it to work with a flash in the hot shoe? the whole idea of this trigger is to give you consistent slave flash using the pop up as controller or master and avoiding the failure rate you get because of sun or the receiver not "seeing" the ir transmission because you put the slave behind a tree or something.

for that outdoor it works fine I used it at a couple of weddings but its transmitter is paddle thing is so flimsy I knew at some point it would get broken so I stopped using it.

given all my flashes are manual apart from the metz 48 i can't test this but as far as i know you can't get hss except with pttl flash capable of hss flash in the hot shoe.

To get a slave to flash to means having the camera body in wireless mode can you set the hotshoe flash to hss and get the slave flash to hss? I did not think that was possible?

[akomlik]

My understanding is:
Any flash capable of being wireless master/controller will work. Popup or hot-shoe mounted makes no difference.
As long as it emits IR remote signals the Aokatec TX unit will capture that and re-transmit over radio waves to RX unit which then will feed it back to remote slave over IR again. Both hot-shoe and remote slave flash units need to support HSS of course.

this is all covered here (look for wireless and HSS colums and notes on master/slave support)
My Metz 48 supports HSS over wirelsss as a slave only. So I need to add a second flash in hot shoe that can do HSS wireless as a master. Few models support this: Pentax brand 360 and 540 , Metz 52, 58 , Sigma DG Super

Once I get second external flash I'll verify HSS working over Aokatec for sure but the manual and physical principals of how product works makes me certain it'll do just what I want it to.

I've tested the setup today at afternoon sun and it worked (at 1/180s or slower or course due to popup flash limitation).

? what ? how are you going to get it to work with a flash in the hot shoe? in wireless mode can you set the hotshoe flash to hss and get the slave flash to hss? I did not think that was possible?

[adwb]

I will be interested to find out if you can indeed do hss with a off camera flash as you suggest, I assume you just put the sender somewhere in the line of site of the hotshoe flash in your scenario

[akomlik]

The AK-TTL manual shows mounting TX unit on top of hot-shoe flash and they provide velcro in the kit to make that easy.

I will be interested to find out if you can indeed do hss with a off camera flash as you suggest, I assume you just put the sender somewhere in the line of site of the hotshoe flash in your scenario

[akomlik]

Since my Metz 48AF-1 does not support wireless HSS master function but can only be slave I consulted the ultimate Pentax PTT feature comparison and after shopping online found used Metz 52AF-1 at Amazon marketplace. All the reviews confirmed it does work as wireless HSS master so I ordered it. When the package arrived however I discovered I received top of the line Metz 58 AF-2 instead. Nice surprise
The only problem is it worked as wireless master but not in HSS mode Hmm... looks like seller misrepresented the unit. Should I return it and keep shopping? But after realizing all the additional features this flash had over my Metz 48 I was really hesitant to return it considering I got it at the price of lower model.

Then I found this thread describing I can use Metz servo mode to accomplish my goal of using off-camera flash at faster than 1/180s. I'd reverse the roles and use my existing Metz 48 in the hot-shoe in regular HSS mode (not wireless) which would enable fast shutter speeds on the camera and send light impulses to trigger (more powerful) Metz 58 off-camera.

I was not sure if Aokatec triggers (which is light->radio->light proxy in essence) would also work to transmit visible light spectrum so I tried it and it worked same way as with infra-red putting IR transmitter over same sensor.

To summarize, with two external flash units, Aokatec transmitters and triple-flash hot shoe adapter I have many options and have tested some:


1. Built-in popup flash controls two off-camera units with P-TTL using IR.
No HSS in this mode range is short. Good enough for dark in-doors with shutter speeds slower than 1/180s.



2. Buil-in popup flash controls two off-camera units with P-TTL over radio.
Long range but still limited to 1/180s or slower.



3. Camera hot-shoe triggers one or more off-camera flash units using Aokatec manual mode.
No PTTL, no HSS - full manual mode. Any flash can be used in this configuration. Aokatec TX unit is mounted in the camera hot-shoe and RX unit is connected to triple-flash hot shoe adapter by 3.5mm stereo cable.
Simple setup just like most other brand of radio trigger.
Interesting observation: with TX unit in hot-shoe camera does not register flash present but closes the circuit up to 1/180s speed.

4. HSS (without P-TTL) using simple optical wireless.
One HSS flash (does not have to be Metz) is mounted in camera hot-shoe. Off-camera Metz (can be multiple) is triggered remotely by light impulse. In Servo mode it ignores pre-flash and fires with actual flash.
Off-camera flash power can only be adjusted manually but it has to be set at 1/1 (full) as that's the only level where flash it long enough (1/125s) for complete frame coverage. Thus to balance ambient and flash one has to experiment with distance to object and/or flash zoom setting.

It turned out the range of optical wireless is much more useful than IR.
I positioned slave flash so it's sensor would face my camera-mounted flash. Even without swiveling the head of camera-mounted unit I had enough flexibility of pointing my camera at the objects and the light would still reliably trigger at 30ft (from the other side of the road). All this in direct sun light.
The range was sufficient for my needs and I used this today during bike race shootout.
I cropped this shot to show actual flash placement so you can judge the range it was effective at.
I enabled secondary flash tube on Metz 58 at 1/4 power just so I could see it as confirmation off-camera flash fired (primary bulb in a head was facing away from me towards the riders).
As you can see from the shadows the flash was directly opposing (morning) sun but was strong enough to lit up the face of even 3d rider (about 4 bike lengths from the flash).



While in theory I loose PTTL control in HSS mode using Servo slave mode but in practice it worked out pretty well today even without extending the range by Aokatec product thus simplifying setup.

5. HSS (without P-TTL) using Aokatec radio wireless extension.
Same as option #4 but extending the range with Aokatec TX and RX units.
The hookups look like this:



I was able to trigger off-camera flash at much longer distance over radio across my entire back-yard


Observation about Aokatec product behavior

One important glitch I found with Aokatec triggers when using Servo mode (as opposed to regular PTTL) was unpredictable false triggering of off-camera flash. At random times RX unit would trigger the off-camera flash to fire without any command. Aside from wasting the battery it also means lost 4-5s for flash recycle (since we must use full power to make HSS work).
I troubleshooted this issue and found that RX unit when set in Auto mode even by itself (i.e. TX unit is off, nothing is hooked up to RX) would randomly start blinking red LED which means it thinks it received radio signal to trigger.

Interestingly off-camera flash is configured as PTTL slave (option #2) this does not produce false flashes (but I noticed system becomes unresponsive during such bursts of false triggering and misfires when I want it to).
When off-camera flash is in Servo mode this behavior leads to wasted flashes.
When Aokatec set to manual mode (option #3) I did not observe any such false triggering (no red LED when not fired).

I emailed Aokatec support about this.

[adwb]

Interesting. And mostly confirmed what I knew or had previously told you about HSS?

As a matter of interest what is your reason for wanting HSS? What is the circumstance that calls for higher shutter speeds and flash at the same time?

[akomlik]

Well, not quite. I'm sure HSS would work wireless as expected with PTTL if I use Metz 52 or either of the Pentax flash units on the camera hot-shoe to control.

I need high shutter speed to freeze the action and flash to counter bad natural light (harsh sun light pointing in the wrong direction like in this example above with finish line location relative to natural light:
- it's location is such that I'm forced to shoot against the sun almost (since I want to face riders faces and not backs)
- this pic of 3d and 4th place finishers is taken at 11:05:16 and you can see faces well lit by the flash (specially two casual riders lady in blue and man in white jacket on the far right who happened to be riding there when the race came by)
- this pic of 5th and 6th place finishers was taken 1s later (2013:12:15 18:05:49) so the Metz58 did not have time to recycle after full power blast. The faces are much darker. Naturally, I tried to level the tones fix this by pushing shadows in LightRoom but still.

Interesting. And mostly confirmed what I knew or had previously told you about HSS?

As a matter of interest what is your reason for wanting HSS? What is the circumstance that calls for higher shutter speeds and flash at the same time?

[adwb]

example not found?

[akomlik]

Sorry, I edited my message to clear this up.

Hey, I'm not trying to prove you must have HSS by any means!
Just trying different techniques to find optimal method of producing best pictures possible under the conditions.
I may be carried away by this technology tour de force but am finding these technical challenges (unfavorable light, fast moving subjects) a lot of fun to find ways to deal with.
If you can suggest better ways I'm all ears. All my knowledge is based on very little practice (only shot dozen bike races this October) and much reading of what's out on Internet.

example not found?

[adwb]

If i may make some comments I think you have got these bike shots a little bit wrong or rather should I say it's not how I would have done it.

I had a feeling that you were doing what your exif data shows from your previous posts about bikes and HSS.

You are using a shutter speed of 1/400 which is so fast you are freezing the bike's wheels so you see the spokes. it looks like the bikes are standing still , and just being balanced there by the riders.

can I suggest the following:-

1, you need to drop the shutter speed to about 1/100 so the spokes are very blurred, and the legs and feet slightly.

2 you need to learn to pan with riders so that you keep them in your viewfinder , pivot from the hips or use a tripod.

if you do this the bikes will have motion the riders will be frozen my the flash.

I assume you under stand the concept of shutter speed controls the ambient light and the aperture controls the speed light./ flash input

you use this to your advantage to take well lit images the show speed and movement but have the riders body frozen and sharp.

just my penny worth but this is one of the techniques what we teach our photography students when they are learning how to use the TV mode on the camera.

for example when you want to use a wider aperture setting that requires a higher shutter speed as is often the case with outdoor daylight shooting. For example, you may want to take an outdoor portrait and your TTL meter tells you that the f-stop should be set at f/16 with a 1/125s shutter. Those settings will give you too much depth of field, way too much nearly everything in sight will be in focus. Instead, what you want is a sharp subject, but a soft, blurred background, which would be achieved with an aperture of about f/2. That’s six stops of light difference, which means that shutter speed needs to go up to 1/5000s.

or as in your case you'll want to use High Shutter Sync when you're shooting with a telephoto lens, trying to capture fast action, using a high shutter speed as well as a high f-stop. So in sports photography High Shutter Sync is ideal, but you have to watch for over freezing the image, imagine what a car looks like if you stand still and flash freeze it with high shutter speed ,the back ground, the car and the wheels are all frozen , the car might as well be parked with the driver sitting in it. or even if you pan with it the background is blurred but the wheels are frozen, again not very life like ?

Just some thoughts and not criticism of any type of your images

[akomlik]

You comments are much appreciated! Thanks for time to write detail response!
All great points and I fully understand these. Indeed bikes look static with spokes frozen.
I'm trying to learn and use panning but recognize it takes a lot of practice and even then percent of good shots is low. I was able to make very few panning shots at slow shutter speeds during that same race while staying at one of the corners. those kind of shots are very hard to make right for me at this point.

I do recognize the relationship of F-stop/DOF, shutter speed and effect on overall exposure.
I guess this shot I made at a previous club race at different course is closer to what you had in mind. Panning works best with shooting at more direct angles to the plane of motion. At the finish line location I wanted high percent of sharp in-focus shots as that's what riders like (to recognize themselves and see their suffering in faces) and so went overboard with too fast a shutter speed.
However, there is technical limitation on how slow I could go shooting from that vantage point. Fast shutter and wide aperture allows to drop ambient light level in relation to flash to balance these. Frozen spokes come out as an unfortunate byproduct. I'm not sure the flash would be able to compete with sun at 1/100s.

If i may make some comments I think you have got these bike shots a little bit wrong or rather should I say it's not how I would have done it.

I had a feeling that you were doing what your exif data shows from your previous posts about bikes and HSS.

You are using a shutter speed of 1/400 which is so fast you are freezing the bike's wheels so you see the spokes. it looks like the bikes are standing still , and just being balanced there by the riders.

[adwb]

Your two sample images in the post above are stupendous and are what every sports editor is looking for, you are correct about angles and that's the Sort of thing that pre planning a shoot enables you to do, if I may suggest one thing , it would be to get a portfolio of images of the quality of the ones above and use them to show the race organisers to get your self " official" status so you can get the best positions and angles at a finish line.
Practice makes perfect thay say and learning how to pan smoothly is a trick worth learning,don't forget the follow through just
Iike in a golf or tennis swing, the difficulty with being at a angle to the oncoming subject is keeping it in focus and while Pentax bodies are not used by sports photographers due to perceived to be slow focusing and slow burst speeds you have already proved they can be used for this type of photography, well done.

[akomlik]

Thanks for the portfolio tip! I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the new stuff I need to learn since I started shooting seriously 2 months ago. My cycling passion led to new reincarnation of long dormant photography one. I borrowed Canon 6D/Metz50 from a friend to shoot my first race. That felt so good and inspired me to buy my first dSLR.
After much research Pentax came out on top (that same friend switched from Pentax to Canon and approved of my choice). I race bikes and wanted to carry gear on my back and shoot at rainy races too. So it had to be light and weather/dust sealed.
I used to shoot a lot as a teenager (friends, classmates and family, but never sports) many years ago but now feel like a newborn coming back to it with all the technology advances (which I'm a big addict of).

So far I only shot races of my own clubs so getting best spots has not been an issue. In several cases (long hill climbs and time trials) I'd do both: race myself (passing the gear to the finish line with support car) and then shoot rest of the field as they get to finish. This past Sunday organizers moved on my request finish line back (shortening the course) by 20ft to avoid trash cans getting in background like it happened at the previous race at same venue. Also since this time I used Metz 58 off-camera I could move father forward from the finish line to better separate riders from background (green bushes in this case while better than trash cans still are not ideal). The negative is that made me shoot at worse angle in relashion to the sun so powerful flash became even more important.
Shooting from the other side of the road (where timing crew was) is least desirable. The only alternative is panning at slow shutter speed standing directly across finish line thus blurring the timing people and their stuff and making very few good shots at that. That would not give my club-mates too many memories of the race (they love to see my pics same evening). I'll keep practicing my panning to overcome this challenge in the future.

Your two sample images in the post above are stupendous and are what every sports editor is looking for, you are correct about angles and that's the Sort of thing that pre planning a shoot enables you to do, if I may suggest one thing , it would be to get a portfolio of images of the quality of the ones above and use them to show the race organisers to get your self " official" status so you can get the best positions and angles at a finish line.
Practice makes perfect thay say and learning how to pan smoothly is a trick worth learning,don't forget the follow through just
Iike in a golf or tennis swing, the difficulty with being at a angle to the oncoming subject is keeping it in focus and while Pentax bodies are not used by sports photographers due to perceived to be slow focusing and slow burst speeds you have already proved they can be used for this type of photography, well done.