Sony A1 HSS Settings for A1 and External flash

[DKW]

I would be grateful for some help on setting up my A1 to shoot HSS with a Profoto B10 and A1. It works fine with my A9 and the settings as far as I can see sre the same. However on the A1, the picture if black! I can only light it if I put the ISO to auto and it goes to 24800. Far too high for what i am doing. Thanks

 

[AlphaWorld]

What trigger are you using? I'm using Elinchrom rather than Profoto, and the Elinchrom SkyPort Pro trigger is Sony specific, so it talks to the camera via the pins at the front of the shoe. Are you using a Sony specific trigger, or a generic one?

I'd strongly recommend getting the flash to trigger in non-HSS mode first, to eliminate other issues before getting into HSS (which can have issues of its own). So I'd set the camera to sync speed (1/200 in electronic shutter, 1/400 in mechanical).

You won't want auto-ISO. I always use ISO 100 on flash (I'm using mains-powered units), but you can use a higher ISO (say, 500 to use the lowest ISO on second gain) - that would mean less power required on a battery powered unit.

 

[DKW]

What trigger are you using? I'm using Elinchrom rather than Profoto, and the Elinchrom SkyPort Pro trigger is Sony specific, so it talks to the camera via the pins at the front of the shoe. Are you using a Sony specific trigger, or a generic one?

I'd strongly recommend getting the flash to trigger in non-HSS mode first, to eliminate other issues before getting into HSS (which can have issues of its own). So I'd set the camera to sync speed (1/200 in electronic shutter, 1/400 in mechanical).

You won't want auto-ISO. I always use ISO 100 on flash (I'm using mains-powered units), but you can use a higher ISO (say, 500 to use the lowest ISO on second gain) - that would mean less power required on a battery powered unit.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I am using a Profoto trigger and lights for Sony. The lights are battery powered. Interestingly and also frustratingly, I can use HSS on my A9 straight out of the box (with intermittent issues) but on the A1 it doesn’t work at all. Everything works fine at normal flash photography. These seething are usually 250 speed, ISO 100 and F5.6. In HSS speed I want to use speed of 2000, ISO100 and F4. Thanks

 

[AlphaWorld]

Mechanical or electronic shutter? With electronic you are already in HSS territory on the A1. The A1 works on electronic shutter with flash (I've used it a lot), but I only use it as a regular flash, not HSS.

The way HSS is implemented on a lot of units is to use the "tail" of the flash, which is considerably dimmer than the peak, but lasts longer. Depending on how fast the flash is, the tail may be considerably dimmer. I was amused to find that I can't use my primary flash units with HSS because they are too fast.

Maybe the shot comes out black because the HSS mode is too dim? BTW: does it comes out truly black? Or just really dim - if you raise the exposure of the shot by 5 stops, do you see the image? Or nothing?

Have a try using the A1 in mechanical shutter with HSS - it may work better, because the mechanical shutter sync is faster.

To be honest, I'd probably just use regular flash.