High-speed sync flash is used when you want to use a shutter speed that is faster than your camera’s native flash sync speed, or when you want to use a wider aperture setting that requires a higher shutter speed as is often the case with outdoor daylight shooting. For example, you may want to take an outdoor portrait and your TTL meter tells you that the f-stop should be set at f/16 with a 1/125s shutter. Those settings will give you too much depth of field, way too much actually. Nearly everything in sight will be in focus. Instead, what you want is a sharp subject, but a soft, blurred background, which would be achieved with an aperture of about f/2. That’s six stops of light difference, which means that shutter speed needs to go up to 1/5000s. This is easily achievable by setting the flash to High Sync Speed. When you take your photo, you’ll have that beautiful, soft background that the pros get when shooting outside. You’ll want to use High Shutter Sync when you’re shooting with a telephoto lens, trying to capture fast action, using a high shutter speed as well as a high f-stop. So in sports photography High Shutter Sync is ideal, and in some wildlife situations as well.
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