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Does the SL really sync at 1/250th?

antigallican

By antigallican
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antigallican

antigallican

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.... mine does mostly, but if I want to be sure I'm better off using a slightly slower speed. Recently I forgot this rule and did a studio portrait session with the camera on 250th - the fastest sync speed according to Leica. It was a mistake. Sure enough some pictures had a slightly darker band in the lower portion. I can get it out with Lightroom  but it is a little bit annoying. Can anyone reliably sync their SL at 250th?

ps I was using Elinchroms

SORRY all. After posting I found the threads that cover this. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to kill off my post. Perhaps a moderator will do so for me.

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antigallican

antigallican

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11 hours ago, Chuck Albertson said:

SL synch speed is 1/180 (last page of manual); I usually drop it down to 1/160 if I'm using PocketWizards.

Printed manual? Spec on the Leica site is 250th, though I think your conservative approach is correct Chuck.

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antigallican

antigallican

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1 hour ago, sillbeers15 said:

1/250 Sec sync is safe without getting partially lighted by strobe. Any faster would not work other than HSS mode from strobe. 

HSS robs lots of energy from strobe but essential for outdoor fill in light situation.

Please forgive me but this isn't true unfortunately, as others have posted here and I found out the hard way. I think Kendoo's and Chuck's posts above are probably right to be safe - 125th or so.

By the way HSS is by no means necessary for outdoor fill - I would usually control that with a three or four stop neutral filter on the SL, which after all goes down to iso 50. So you put the filter on, get the exposure right for the background, then flash-fill the foreground. It's a bit old school, but Leica doesn't leave us with many HSS choices.

 

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AndreaP75

AndreaP75

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Priolite system can HSS up to 1/4000 without any vignetting, a minor vignetting of approximately 5% of the frame happens at 1/8000s.

I have 2 of their strobes, MBX500-HS Ultra, excellent quality and consistency even when approaching the max output in continuous shooting.

They are made in Germany, they have great battery power and accept several mounts for light modification.

I think they are worth to check it out, as they are the only system with a dedicated Leica hotshoe transmitter.

 

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sillbeers15

sillbeers15

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10 hours ago, AndreaP75 said:

Priolite system can HSS up to 1/4000 without any vignetting, a minor vignetting of approximately 5% of the frame happens at 1/8000s.

I have 2 of their strobes, MBX500-HS Ultra, excellent quality and consistency even when approaching the max output in continuous shooting.

They are made in Germany, they have great battery power and accept several mounts for light modification.

I think they are worth to check it out, as they are the only system with a dedicated Leica hotshoe transmitter.

 

I am an amateur and do no have an assistant and a donkey.

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sillbeers15

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2 hours ago, m9photo said:

HSS disability is the only thing preventing me of using my Elinchrom EL 400 on SL.

Elinchrome Skyport transmitters support Panasonic S1R which in turn accepts Leica SL lenses.

With the L mount alliance, I hope that Leice will follow the Panasonic flash protocol for coming SL2. This will open up the possibility of Profoto, Elinchrome & Godox ,.... to be used on SL2. With SL2 along, strobe producers may not be keen to develop for Leica due to the limited number of users.

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m9photo

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6 hours ago, sillbeers15 said:

Elinchrome Skyport transmitters support Panasonic S1R which in turn accepts Leica SL lenses.

With the L mount alliance, I hope that Leice will follow the Panasonic flash protocol for coming SL2. This will open up the possibility of Profoto, Elinchrome & Godox ,.... to be used on SL2. With SL2 along, strobe producers may not be keen to develop for Leica due to the limited number of users.

I'm crossing my fingers on that, its a shame that they didn't adapt since the beginning. Or maybe Elinchrom should release transmitter pro for Leica.

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AndreaP75

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On 9/8/2019 at 10:18 PM, nicci78 said:

Thanks for the info @AndreaP75

I did not know this brand before.

You're welcome! Apparently the owner of Priolite was one of the key person at Hensel. Their strobes are really well made, although not as fancy or "fashionable" like Profoto and alike...but they do the job and that's what matter at the end IMHO

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lx1713

lx1713

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26 minutes ago, AndreaP75 said:

Well, for a compact HSS solution, Leica is already offering their own system.

Yes, I agree. For HSS, I would prefer to use Leica's own system if I have to go HSS. If I used strobes and need to sync at higher speed I would prefer to use the Q2 with all the limitations of that camera but at least I will be using most of the potential of the strobe.

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lx1713

lx1713

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On 9/8/2019 at 4:58 AM, antigallican said:

.... mine does mostly, but if I want to be sure I'm better off using a slightly slower speed. Recently I forgot this rule and did a studio portrait session with the camera on 250th - the fastest sync speed according to Leica. It was a mistake. Sure enough some pictures had a slightly darker band in the lower portion. I can get it out with Lightroom  but it is a little bit annoying. Can anyone reliably sync their SL at 250th?

ps I was using Elinchroms

SORRY all. After posting I found the threads that cover this. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to kill off my post. Perhaps a moderator will do so for me.

Yes, I've reliably shot at 1/250 and even 1/400 but with a caveat. I was using a Canon 600RTII on manual. Give it a try. It might well be an outlier on my part but it's likely that the flash duration is so short that it fits entirely in the shutter duration.

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sillbeers15

sillbeers15

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1 hour ago, AndreaP75 said:

Well, for a compact HSS solution, Leica is already offering their own system.

Yes. I have the SFC-1 Commander and two units of SF60 & Nissin MG10. The MG10 is way more reliable than the SF60s as they shut down automatically as soon as they overheat upon higher frequency usage.

I have feedback the issue of only TTL mode available when HSS is selected to Leica more than 6 months ago but received no solution offered.

Therefore an available 3rd party compact wireless strobe system such as Godox would certainly be welcome. Btw, Profoto is too snobbish to offer Leica users a solution.

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