dougpeterson
Workshop Member
Everyone's needs and budget will be different.All very valid information Doug but not exactly a good enough reason for us to all go out and spend £35,000 GBP on a Phase One system over the Pentax. In the context of the original question, 1/125th second flash sync should prove quite adequate on the new Pentax, especially for studio work.
1/125th second sync also means the type of strobe equipment needs to be much less exotic and affordable. More Senso or Acute rather than Scoro or Pro8a levels of investment.
Though notably faster-than-125 sync doesn't remotely require a £35k entry price.
A new Leaf Credo kit is $13,995 for 1/1600th sync and a Phase One h20 on a Hassy 500 would provide 1/500th sync for under $2k - far less than the Pentax (with obvious other disadvantages like having no LCD!).
My point is only that everyone's needs are different. If you shoot only stopped down in a dim studio then flash sync isn't even worth a single dollar. If you might benefit from a higher sync speed it's still only one of many things to consider, including price.
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Separately, how does faster sync *require* better flash units? When using entry-level strobes you simply opt not to go to the max available shutter speed. It will still work fine at 1/250th and usually even 1/500th - yielding more flexibility than a hard 1/125th limit (which as described in this thread will be very useful in some situations and entirely irrelevant in others). Also there are a LOT of cheap options for fast duration strobes. In my case the overwhelming majority of my my use of fast flash sync comes in the form of adding a small amount of fill when shooting outdoors at weddings where I'm using a Canon 580 speedlight which is a (comparatively) very inexpensive flash unit. You don't think about that unit as providing a lot of light until you're able to shoot with it outdoors at ISO200 at f/2.8 by virtue of a leaf shutter allowing setting shutter speed to 1/1600th without effecting the flash exposure. At my last wedding I also brought profoto B1 heads. These aren't cheap, but they are battery powered and powerful and are nowhere near the cost of a profoto d4 or pro-pack.