Phototip Quickie : Know your gear

Recently I got a new camera body.

For all intents and purposes it is exactly like my old camera body. Buttons are basically in the same place. It feels very similar. I can use either now without thinking about the camera.

This means it works exactly the same right?

Wrong.

I was playing around with headshots and a clamshell lighting setup at home, you know, before taking my new camera out on a "real" assignment.

Like normal, my lights were being fired with Skyport (I'd link to the product on the manufacturer's site, but the site seems designed to "encourage" only front page links) radio triggers. I had my shutter dialed to maximum sync speed (1/250), again this is normal procedure for me indoors. I noticed the pictures looked dark on the right side of the frame in portrait orientation, and dark on the bottom in landscape orientation. I didn't think much about this (I did think-- "oh, I am picking up the curio cabinet", or "oh, I must have aimed a little low and picked up the softbox material") . When I got to the computer I saw motion blur.

I then realized I was seeing the shutter, the camera wasn't syncing with the flash!

A quick Google search later my suspicion was confirmed. It is "well" known Skyports will not allow full frame cameras to use their maximum sync speeds with monoblocks.

I didn't know! Thankfully, I was doing "due-diligence" with a new camera. I didn't mess up something for others.