Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I have been trying to learn about Einstein monolights.
The short flash duration is awesome. The question I have
Is can I shoot shutter speeds over the 1dmk4 max sync speed?
The reviews show amazing sports and studio splash shots
With little to no ghosting or blur. Is this achieved with short
Flash duration alone or these shots also taken a over 1/300
Shutter speeds. Thanks for any help.

There's a sticky thread above about hypersync etc. that addresses this - there's a lot of information there about techniques and combinations you could try.

But your camera's sync speed is a function of the camera itself and won't be any different with the Einstein.

That being said, it's a great flash unit for freezing motion. You just need to set your exposure so that the ambient light doesn't contribute. You'll know you're there if you get a black screen when you take a picture without the flash on. At that point, the flash duration (T.1) becomes your effective shutter speed.

It really depends on how much ambient light is in the exposure. If this is in your typical studio environment, then flash duration will achieve this freezing. Think about a haunted house with strobe lights. You don't have to blink your eyes as fast as the lights do in order to achive the choppy motion effect. A very similar situation to action freezing in studio.

However, if you mix in a lot of ambient light, then you may catch blurring from using 1/250 of a second shutter speed (or what ever x-sync your camera has). If this blur happens with no flash, it will happen with flash, too. This can, to some extent, be mitigated with "hypersync", allowing faster shutter speeds. But, since there is not such thing as a free lunch, you will get an overall reduced range from your lights, and with Einstein, you will be limited to full (or very close to full) power settings. At lower power settings, the flash duration is shorter than the travel time of your shutter (remember, your shutter blades always travel at the same speed. It is only the time between shutter blades that change). If the flash duration is shorter, then you will get black bars (sometiemes even on the top and bottom simultaneously).