Cactus RF60 HSS

ktownbill wrote:

Brian Hursey wrote:

ktownbill wrote:

Brian Hursey wrote:

I talked to them about radio hss. Issue is it is either they make it a ttl trigger brand specific and throw out everything else, or keep it the way it is. As long as one of the flashes sees the ttl pre signal it passes hss to all of the rest of the flashes via radio. The thing is the camera has to think it sees a ttl flash to go into hss mode. Then the RF60 sees the hss pre flash and uses that signal to trigger hss. I slaved mine of of a ttl flash in my softbox using a yn622c. Although in bright sun if it is not able to see the signal i could see where it could be a problem. I am seeing if there is a way to use the v6 to mass the signal that way you could put the v6 closer to the hss ttl flash. It still is an intresting concept. I got a little carried away with my testing. The RF60s are the top row of flashes. https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7358/13022083514_0a0cc604e4_b.jpg

Brian, thank you for sharing this information. I like your set-up using a remote flash to trigger the RF60's into HSS mode.

I think the various articles are misleading readers into thinking that you can do HSS with just a single RF60. I'm guessing that it takes 3 RF60's to achieve sufficient burn-time to effect HSS or can you do it with just 2 units?

Why doesn't Cactus use an outboard module that plugs into the flash allowing for RF enabled HSS? If only the engineers were photographers too!

You can do HSS with just one RF60 however it has to see the has pre flash from a HSS flash, AKA an on camera hss ttl flash, or one on a hss trigger. So for example:

Setup A: Canon 580EXII on Canon 60D in hss mode -> rf60 optical slave in HSS mode. If the RF60 sees the ttl flash it will go into hss sympathy mode.

Setup B: YN622C on Canon 60d -> yn622c off camera with Canon 580EXII -> rf60 optical slave in hss mode.

When the rf60 sees the hss pre flash it switches into hss mode, which does the same as standard ttl flashes firing fast pulses of light to cover the frame. It is not a hyper sync type of burn in.

Im a tester We talked about the HSS option adding to the Cactus v6. The issue is the flash trigger would have to actually truly be ttl protocol to allow the camera to go into auto fp mode. By moving to ttl you would basically throwing out all of RF60 and v6's features, and backwards compatibility and so on and just moving to a standard brand specific ttl system. The RF60 and v6 are as brand agnostic as they can be. You can not break out just the hss portion out of the protocol. Also most of cactus engineers are photographers.

Brian, thank you for clarifying that issue for me and any readers that I led astray. I got my mis-information from Gadget Infinity and MPX when I inquired about hss functionality.

Can multiple MP60's be fired sequentially using the built-in user-settable delay feature to accomplish HSS? (The idea being to retain full-power flash bursts.)

Another tester was able to do this.. With a Cactus v6 transceiver to off camera rf60s. I am trying to figure it out. I will update once I have figured it out. I have 5 RF60s LOL so I think i can do it don't you? LOL The cactus v6 transceiver that goes with the rf60 should be out in may http://brianhurseyphotography.com/blog/?p=574