Alien Bees High Speed Sync – Oh yea! SOLVED

Where do I start? My story starts a few months back, when I was surfing the web and came across the work of vibrant photography out of Australia. His bridals portraits are breath taking. His bridals portraits are outside, and he uses a portable power supply with a studio flash with a Beauty Dish Reflector. Because, studio flashes do have high speed sync (HSS), many of his work is taken around f 16. I was thinking I could do that if I had that equipment, I have a set of White Lightening flashes that I’m very happy with so I thought I would look in to an  AlienBee with a Vagabond II portable power supply .

So, I order them; than I find this video on YouTube called “Alien Bees & Others – High Speed Sync – Oh yea!” I’m thinking,  jackpot! I have it made HSS with a system I just ordered, and all I’ll need to buy is a Radiopopper JrX receiver and I’ll have it all.

I also, shot weddings and have set of Radiopopper’s PX system which I just love. I can’t wait!

I love my radiopopper

So, when I tried HSS with my Alien Bee and Radiopopper, sometimes it would work and sometimes it won’t. I was convinced, that it MOST have something to do with the switches settings on the Radiopopper JrX. I tried every switch combination I could think of and it would not work. I called the people at Radiopopper so see how they did it. One thing I do like about the Radiopopper’s is the help, I’ve always talked with a real person, or they have called be back. I’m getting off track, the people at Radiopopper, said they have some bad news for me because they could not get it to work anymore either, and if I found a way to get to work consistently to let them know.

When I went back and looked at my images and the images that were in the “Alien Bees & Others – High Speed Sync – Oh yea!” video they all had one thing in common. HSS only works when the lens was fully open. On my 70 – 200mm f 2.8 lens; HSS only works at f 2.8 and won’t work at any aperture above f 2.8.

HSS at only one aperture is limiting, but it’s much more freedom than I had before. What good is high speed sync anyway? The biggest advantage is when using a flash outside. The flash controls the light on your subject, and the shutter speed controls the ambient light. So, at high speeds you can get a deep blue sky.

The bottom line is HSS with Alien Bees and the Radiopopper PX transmitter and JrX receiver does work but only at the widest opening of the lens.

Let me go over that worked for me:

AlienBee 1600 – I was shooting outside, so I had lamp tracking off, but I have checked this with lamp tracking on and off, it does not make a difference.

Connected to a Radiopopper JrX receiver (studio) using the mini jack not the phone cord.

JrX receiver – Channel 07, Group 00, Error Checking Enabled, AB Model Lamp Track disabled.

Radiopopper PX transmitter – Channel 07 which was triggered by a Canon ST-E2 Transmitter  in HSS mode.

Canon 7D – ISO 200 / f 2.8.

Please let me know if this help, I would love to hear back from you.

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