Inon Z330, Sony RX100II, and HSS?

Hello,

I have been taking many successful photographs with my Inon strobes and my RX100II for a few years now. I have recently been researching upgrading to M4/3 and want something with a higher sync speed (looking at E-M5III at 1/250sec). But this has led to a question: why do my Z330s seem to work just fine with my RX100II all the way up to its fastest shutter speed, 1/2000 sec? I get that it must be related to electronic vs. mechanical shutter, but even in that case my understanding is something needs to be done with multiple short flashes working with the electronic "curtains".

Mainly just curious.

Thanks, Mike

The RX-100 has a leaf shutter located within the lens and it can sync at high shutter speeds.  Focal plane shutters are used on DSLRs and some mirroless cameras are subject to flash sync speed constraints due to the time taken for the shutter to traverse the frame.  This link shows the difference:  https://www.captureintegration.com/the-leaf-shutter-advantage-for-strobe-sync/

At 1/2000 shutter speed if you were using full power you would probably run into a limitation as the flash duration on a Z-330 is somewhere in the range of 1/250 sec or so.  At 1/2000 sec you would only get about 1/8 of the pulse while the shutter is open.  At lower strobe powers the pulse is significantly shorter so you don't have that limitation.  The Olympus cameras can apparently achieve around 1/320 flash sync with some flash triggers, however shutter speed above 1/250 is locked out if a non HSS flash is attached to the camera.

15 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

At 1/2000 shutter speed if you were using full power you would probably run into a limitation as the flash duration on a Z-330 is somewhere in the range of 1/250 sec or so.  At 1/2000 sec you would only get about 1/8 of the pulse while the shutter is open.  At lower strobe powers the pulse is significantly shorter so you don't have that limitation.  The Olympus cameras can apparently achieve around 1/320 flash sync with some flash triggers, however shutter speed above 1/250 is locked out if a non HSS flash is attached to the camera.

Officially the Z-330 gives a full dump in 1/1000 sec, do you have other information Chris?  My Nauticam trigger on Olympus allows me to shoot at 1/400.

15 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

The RX-100 has a leaf shutter located within the lens and it can sync at high shutter speeds.  Focal plane shutters are used on DSLRs and some mirroless cameras are subject to flash sync speed constraints due to the time taken for the shutter to traverse the frame.  This link shows the difference:  https://www.captureintegration.com/the-leaf-shutter-advantage-for-strobe-sync/

At 1/2000 shutter speed if you were using full power you would probably run into a limitation as the flash duration on a Z-330 is somewhere in the range of 1/250 sec or so.  At 1/2000 sec you would only get about 1/8 of the pulse while the shutter is open.  At lower strobe powers the pulse is significantly shorter so you don't have that limitation.  The Olympus cameras can apparently achieve around 1/320 flash sync with some flash triggers, however shutter speed above 1/250 is locked out if a non HSS flash is attached to the camera.

If I used a TTL converter like a UW Technics with the E-M5 and Z330 strobes, it sounds like I could approach 1/320 sync?

5 hours ago, morty343 said:

If I used a TTL converter like a UW Technics with the E-M5 and Z330 strobes, it sounds like I could approach 1/320 sync?

Maybe, the Olympus cameras lock out shutter speeds faster than 1/250 when a flash is detected and TTL converters have to communicate with the camera.  A manual strobe trigger on the other hand only responds to the closing of the firing circuit which can be done without camera communication.  So I expect a manual strobe trigger might be a better option if you want to increase sync speed.

7 hours ago, Floris Bennema said:

Officially the Z-330 gives a full dump in 1/1000 sec, do you have other information Chris?  My Nauticam trigger on Olympus allows me to shoot at 1/400.

I found this thread where someone had measured it and found full dump of 1/480. 

View archived post in: Z330 flash duration

some info on other strobe duration here: 

View archived post in: Flash duration?

10 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

I found this thread where someone had measured it and found full dump of 1/480. 

Thanks Chris, very interesting threads. So no worries with my combination while shooting at 1/400. That's also what Phil Rudin told me from experience in another thread. Good to know that I dont have to recall discharge curves of xenon tubes while photographing against the sun :-)

On 4/4/2022 at 6:14 PM, ChrisRoss said:

Maybe, the Olympus cameras lock out shutter speeds faster than 1/250 when a flash is detected and TTL converters have to communicate with the camera.  A manual strobe trigger on the other hand only responds to the closing of the firing circuit which can be done without camera communication.  So I expect a manual strobe trigger might be a better option if you want to increase sync speed.

 

Ok, I think I am starting to understand. If an attached strobe "identifies" itself as a TTL unit but not HSS-capable (super FP in Olympus parlance?), the camera will lock out anything over 1/250. Triggers like Nauticam's only connect to the shoe contacts that will fire the strobe and as such the camera does not "see" an attached flash unit, so the 1/250 lockout will not occur, at the gain of faster strobe firing (up to 10 frames/sec) and at the expense of losing TTL. Shutter speeds without banding may be possible up to 1/400 in this case.

For an E-M5 in a Nauticam housing, if I use the FL-LM3 I can get TTL with my Z330s, but often with 1+ second recycle times (limited by how fast the FL-LM3 can recycle). If I manually set the FL-LM3 to minimum power, I can get up to ~3 triggers/second at the expense of losing TTL and am now more limited by the Z330 recycle speed.

This again leads me to the TTL converters like UW Technics or the Turtle SMART converter. What I believe I understand: These allow TTL control that is only limited by the Z330 recycle time (no flash "recharge" wait as with the FL-LM3)? And they can also be configured to act as a manual unit with speed like the Nauticam trigger. And it seems the UW Technics unit can identify itself as an HSS-capable unit, but the only UW strobe that can take advantage are the Retra units.

Is most of this right? Thanks again!

5 hours ago, morty343 said:

Ok, I think I am starting to understand. If an attached strobe "identifies" itself as a TTL unit but not HSS-capable (super FP in Olympus parlance?), the camera will lock out anything over 1/250. Triggers like Nauticam's only connect to the shoe contacts that will fire the strobe and as such the camera does not "see" an attached flash unit, so the 1/250 lockout will not occur, at the gain of faster strobe firing (up to 10 frames/sec) and at the expense of losing TTL. Shutter speeds without banding may be possible up to 1/400 in this case.

For an E-M5 in a Nauticam housing, if I use the FL-LM3 I can get TTL with my Z330s, but often with 1+ second recycle times (limited by how fast the FL-LM3 can recycle). If I manually set the FL-LM3 to minimum power, I can get up to ~3 triggers/second at the expense of losing TTL and am now more limited by the Z330 recycle speed.

This again leads me to the TTL converters like UW Technics or the Turtle SMART converter. What I believe I understand: These allow TTL control that is only limited by the Z330 recycle time (no flash "recharge" wait as with the FL-LM3)? And they can also be configured to act as a manual unit with speed like the Nauticam trigger. And it seems the UW Technics unit can identify itself as an HSS-capable unit, but the only UW strobe that can take advantage are the Retra units.

Is most of this right? Thanks again!

Mostly, the LED triggers get away from the mini flash recycle times.  I'm not sure what happens with the TTL triggers when placed in manual.  I expect you can place them in manual from the camera just like the mini flash - but the camera still sees a flash there and limits shutter speed.  I'm not sure how or if you can set up the TTL trigger to allow high flash sync speeds.

31 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

Mostly, the LED triggers get away from the mini flash recycle times.  I'm not sure what happens with the TTL triggers when placed in manual.  I expect you can place them in manual from the camera just like the mini flash - but the camera still sees a flash there and limits shutter speed.  I'm not sure how or if you can set up the TTL trigger to allow high flash sync speeds.

Ok. Your feedback is very much appreciated!

Mike