Cool Tip!

I was just playing around with a small flash that I sometimes carry instead of my SB's (A Sunpack Auto 211 Thyristor). It's not dedicated to Nikon but it's easy enough to set the flash on auto and set the camera on manual. It works great. But the cool thing I found, is, that I can sync up to 1/180th of a second instead of 1/125th with the Nikon Flash.

I think if the flash does not communicate with the camera, you can get any flash to work at 1/180th. (I will test out my Vivitar 283 if I can find it.)
--Peter C

Hi Peter,

It worked with shorter distance and faster flash duration.

I just tested 1/180 sync on my S1 with some flash units. I used Sunpak auto 544 / auto 301 / auto 140 and Metz 32MZ-3 and all flash units worked at 1/180 with less than 2 to 3 meters. When I tried 1/180 sync at 4m, 5m and farther, all images got uneven exposure by shutter blades.

I guess smaller flash units and faster flash duration speed work at 1/180.

However, when distance is farther than 2 or 3 meters (depends on flash unit) or bigger flash units like studio flash, the flash duration is slower and doesn’t make proper flash exposure.

I think this 1/180 sync tip might give me a little better fill-in flash capability, but I need to work out the characteristic of my flash units.

Thanks for interesting tip.

Yup, I've tried 1/180 with a third party flash on the S1 (a Canon 550EX speedlite, of all things!), and as Eiji said, it works reasonably at very short distances for fill. However, trying anything faster as far as sync will result in your classic botched flash exposure, where half the subject is shaded because the shutter couldn't sync fast enough.

Robert

Peter Cas said:

I was just playing around with a small flash that I sometimes carry
instead of my SB's (A Sunpack Auto 211 Thyristor). It's not
dedicated to Nikon but it's easy enough to set the flash on auto
and set the camera on manual. It works great. But the cool thing I
found, is, that I can sync up to 1/180th of a second instead of
1/125th with the Nikon Flash.
I think if the flash does not communicate with the camera, you can
get any flash to work at 1/180th. (I will test out my Vivitar 283
if I can find it.)

--
Peter C

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