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faster flash sync with Sony APSC

Started Jun 24, 2021 | Discussions
Schwaeble Regular Member • Posts: 367
faster flash sync with Sony APSC

Hi, I presently have an A6300 in a Seafrogs salted line housing and two Sea&&Sea D2 strobes. I am doing OK with it, I think, at least for an once in a while diver.

These things bother me, but for the purpose of this thread lets assume the first one is the big one (although, battery live is a bummer too).

I am wondering if I might be helped by upgrading to another Sony APSC camera (maybe A6600? or in actuality not really … or…

- flash sync speed limitation to 1/160 s: I  trigger my flashes via the camera‘s little flash and optical fibre cords. Works fine, but I cannot set a faster shutter speed than 1/160 s. If I try to work in some sort of ambient and flash light balance, that really is not good enough to freeze motion. Would another Sony APSC camera let notably improve upon that (even if it were to mean new housing, but not lenses and ports)? Or not really?

While going to FF is out of the question at this time, would the right Sony full frame camera let me fix that?

If it had no built in flash, how would I trigger the D2s?

- battery life: At best two dives. I would like to get to four or five, so that I only need rinse, dry, ooen the housing (inspect & clean, replace silica gel, test housing etc.) only once a day if I ever am so lucky again to dive that much. I hear the A6600 is a vast improvement there.

- Once that built in flash is up there us no on camera way to change to ambient light shooting only w/o flash. I think I can just switch the two D2s off and manually shoot whichever way I want, but the internal flash will keep popping and will keep draining the battery … and will keep limiting me to 1/160 s shutter speed. I read about a sliding magnet housing hack fix somewhere here a long while ago (to

trick the camera into thinking the flash is down), but I am a bit worried about even slight housing mods…

If I change cameras, I would want to be able to on camera switch between flash and non flash modes with the camera in the housing.

- The 4” dome port with the 12mm Rokinon lens. I just seem to get pictures that seem to be not quite sharp. Does anyone else struggle with that?

Sony a6300
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PHXAZCRAIG
PHXAZCRAIG Forum Pro • Posts: 19,651
Re: faster flash sync with Sony APSC

Not much of an answer, but I think the problem you have is that the shutter speed in the A6600 just isn't fast enough. The maximum shutter speed is 1/4000th, which tells me the sync speed will be lower than cameras with 1/8000th top shutter speed.

Looking at the specs, the max sync speed for the A6600 is 1/160th, so you're as good as you're going to get there.   Adding in external strobes only makes the whole system slower to react.

Personally, I shoot for 1/160th as the best compromise between freezing fish in motion and keeping the ISO down.   On my D810 and D850, max shutter speed is 1/8000th, and max sync speed is 1/250th, but I can't get that to work with my YS-D1's, optically triggered.  The delay is just enough to get a black line across my image at 1/250th, but I can usually get good results at 1/200th.  Just don't normally have a need for 1/200th.

Only other thing you might try is setting exposure (lower your ISO) such that no ambient contributes to the shot, and your shutter speed effectively because the flash speed, which might be as short as 1/10,000th.

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PHXAZCRAIG
PHXAZCRAIG Forum Pro • Posts: 19,651
one trick to help with battery life

Forgot to mention in my first reply.  I don't know that your camera can do this, but I assume it can set flash power manually.   To save battery (and might possibly speed up the flash response a hair), set the pop-up flash to 1/16th power, or whatever is the least amount of power to reliably trigger the strobes.    Saves a lot of battery.

My D810 DSLR will go at least three dives using a pop-up flash like this, probably more like 8-10, but I typically do 3 dives a day then charge everything.  But my Sony RX100 and Canon point-n-shoots generally needed a battery change after every dive.  Bring enough spare batteries.

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OP Schwaeble Regular Member • Posts: 367
Re: faster flash sync with Sony APSC

Craig, thanks. Yeah, that is pretty much what I am doing.

But I am still wondering if (and if so how) my flash sync speed options might change if I were to upgrade my A6300.
I got that you could use up to 1/250 s sync speed on your system, except it does not really work with the optical triggering, so you also make do with 1/160 s.

I agree that a change from 1/160s to 1/250s would also only be marginal.

OP Schwaeble Regular Member • Posts: 367
Re: one trick to help with battery life

Yeah, I am an air hog as much as my camera is a battery hog (and has a small battery to begin with). So I often use the flash on TTL and just fiddle with the correction factor. Works for me so far and I am faster than full manual (good for my air consumption). But I will look into and play with ways to reduce the camera flash output. good point.

Spare batteries are not the issue. I just dont desire to open the housing possibly not yet rinsed and dried i.e. on a windy sand beach at all… I prefer to wait until in a clean environment, preferably with running clean water. Yes, I can make do without, but since one leak is all it takes, i rather not. I recently had a silica gel packet burst on me (I recycle them by drying in the oven, maybe it got slightly too hot). What a mess to clean up in the housing. I only imagine how much worse it might be with blown in sand…

Barmaglot_07 Contributing Member • Posts: 633
Re: faster flash sync with Sony APSC

Okay, let's go over this point by point.

First, no Sony APS-C camera has a native flash sync speed faster than 1/160s. Full-frame Sony cameras can sync at 1/250s but only if you use a TTL-capable flash trigger, as this is right at the edge of their shutter performance envelope, and they need very precise timing for it to work - without such a trigger, you're still limited to 1/160s. One exception is the A1 - it has a brand new shutter mechanism that can do 1/400s, or 1/500s in APS-C crop mode. It also costs $6500 for just the body, and you need full-frame glass to go with it.

One way to get around this limitation is high-speed sync, which is fairly common in land strobes, but extremely rare underwater. You can easily Google an explanation of how flash HSS works, but for the purposes of underwater photography, your options are:

1) Seacam Seaflash 60D or 160D with Canon or Nikon cameras and wired triggering - while these strobes can be triggered over fiber optics, the high-speed sync option is only available over electrical wires, and only for Canon and Nikon cameras.
2) Retra Flash Prime X or Retra Flash Pro X (or, if by some miracle you find someone selling a used one, a non-X Prime/Pro model, but not the original Retra Flash with the straight flash tube) plus an LED trigger board capable of generating the HSS signal. To the best of my knowledge, only UW-Technics and TRT Electronics make compatible triggers, but they do support Canon, Nikon, Sony and Olympus/Panasonic in a variety of housings.

Keep in mind that HSS significantly reduces overall flash power.

Regarding battery life, I'm using a Sony A6300, same as you, and with new original Sony batteries, I was getting three dives out of a charge with 16-50mm or 10-18mm, and two dives with 90mm. Several years later, I'm getting two dives with 16-50mm or 10-18mm, and tend to run out of battery on the second dive with 90mm, so it's probably time to get a couple new batteries. I find this generally sufficient, but if it's not enough, you can probably get a small powerbank and stick it inside the housing - the Salted Line has a significant volume of empty space inside. An A6600 will give you much better battery life, but it will require a new housing and ports, and won't solve your other issues.

FWIW, I never use moisture absorbents inside the housing and I haven't had any problems with fogging during a dive thus far.

If you change to a camera without a built-in flash, you will need to use either an LED trigger or a wired connection. With the former, keep in mind that Sea & Sea strobes are known for having low sensitivity on their optical sensors - they're all fine when triggering off a camera flash that dumps lots of light down the fiber, and YS-D1s tend to be okay with LED triggers that aren't near as bright, but YS-D2s have been known to be troublesome in less than optimal conditions, and YS-D3s are even worse in that regard - Sea & Sea's own LED trigger uses unusually powerful LEDs and a comparatively large battery to work around that. Also, keep in mind that not all triggers are created equal - some are capable of TTL operation, while others are manual only, and HSS support is far from common. SeaFrogs have a very affordable (just $20) trigger, but it only fits their A6600 and A7S III housings, as it mounts on the camera's hot shoe, and these housings have LED portholes lined up with said shoe.

Alternatively, if you opt for wired sync, you need strobes that support it and a housing with the appropriate bulkhead. If you want features more advanced than simple triggering with manual power setting on the strobes, you also need a trigger board - TRT triggers are optical-only, but UW-Technics boards support both optical and wired triggering. One exception is Seacam Seaflash strobes that have TTL circuitry built into the strobe itself, but this is limited to Canon and Nikon, and in older models, it's Canon or Nikon, as they have separate SKUs for different camera systems. You also have to deal with fairly thick and bulky cables (in comparison to fiber optics), and multiple connectors that are secured with o-rings, all of which are potential leakage points.

The magnet trick doesn't require any modification of the housing - the pop-up flash has a small magnet in it, and the camera has a Hall effect sensor that is triggered by this magnet when the flash is down, letting the camera software known that it has been retracted. If you trigger that sensor independently, it will achieve the same effect, so you can get a pair of neodymium magnets, put one on the inside of the housing, the other on the outside, and use the outer magnet as a handle to slide the inner magnet close to the flash to disable it, and away from the flash to re-enable it. Note that if you use a trigger or wired sync in lieu of the pop-up flash, you can disable it from the camera menu (function - flash - off).

By 12mm Rokinon you mean the rectilinear one? The 4" port is too small for it - I mean, physically it might fit, but it really needs a six or eight inch dome to work anywhere close to properly. The four inch port is meant to work with fisheye lenses like Sony 16mm + VCL-ECF combination, or Rokinon 8mm f/2.8.

Edit: If you really want fast flash sync without breaking the bank, premium compacts are worth a look. With a leaf shutter, most of them can sync with strobes all the way to 1/2000s-1/4000s. Battery life will take a hit though.

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Barmaglot_07 Contributing Member • Posts: 633
Re: one trick to help with battery life

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

Forgot to mention in my first reply. I don't know that your camera can do this, but I assume it can set flash power manually. To save battery (and might possibly speed up the flash response a hair), set the pop-up flash to 1/16th power, or whatever is the least amount of power to reliably trigger the strobes. Saves a lot of battery.

The A6300, and to the best of my knowledge, all Sony cameras with an internal flash do not allow operating it in manual mode. Same as on your RX100, you can use flash compensation to dial it up or down a bit, but you can't force a specific power setting, and it will always pre-flash.

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Dann-Oh Contributing Member • Posts: 894
Re: one trick to help with battery life

If you want to upgrade to an A7iii, let me know Ill make you a smoking deal on it as it has a broken EVF but I want to sell it off as a full kit not just body only.

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pablomiami New Member • Posts: 3
Re: one trick to help with battery life

If you go on the menu and set the camera to silent shooting the flash won't work, even if it's up

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