Just yesterday, Profoto announced a major upgrade in compatibility with Sony cameras. The announcement focuses on the Sony a9 III, the first camera primarily meant for still photography with a global shutter unit. Obviously, it’s designed for professional photographers, sports, journalists, wildlife, etc. A lot of the current generations of creators out there might use this camera with LEDs and not really go into the actual creation process in-camera. And it’s hard to blame them — Sony is all about providing the cleanest plate possible so that you can try to craft your own masterpiece in your post-production kitchen. But lots of the photographers who actually know what they’re doing with cameras (yes, I’ll be divisive here) know just what a good strobe can do for them that constant lights can’t do. It has to do with high speed sync. But most importantly, the Sony a9 III does things that no other camera can do.
The main jist of the new announcement from Profoto can be found in this one tidbit:
Photographers using the Profoto A10, or the A10 in combination with the D30, Pro-D3, or Pro-B3 will gain seamless flash synchronization in TTL with the α9 III at any shutter speed — up to 1/80,000s. This update marks the first phase in a larger rollout, with full system compatibility planned across Profoto’s flash lineup.
So what does this mean? Well, it means that you can do things with a camera that weren’t at all possible before. When I tested the Sony a9 III, I really made this happen, and I think you truly need to go to our review to see what’s possible.
With a global shutter, you can shoot at an insanely high shutter speed and still get the effects of the flash in the scene. While we haven’t tested the latest Profoto configuration, Sony’s engineers developed a workaround called Flash Timing Setting that we talked about in our review.
So what does this mean? Well, with high speed sync, you’ll typically get the effects of the flash in the scene at 1/8,000. But going beyond that will kill the light output. Now, you can go to 1/80,000 and still get light output.
Essentially, you can make a daylight scene look like it was shot at night. And you can also make subjects look like they were shot against a totally black background. But what we’re assuming with this new Profoto firmware update is that you might not need to do the setting tweaks in camera that we talk about in the Ease of Use section in our review.
I had to go back to our review and realize just how insanely impossible it has been to get images like this before. But now, you can do it. And more importantly, the Sony a9 III is the only camera that can make it happen.
What’s more, Profoto announcing that they made it possible to work better with Sony makes them really the only ones that we know of who could do it. Godox, to our knowledge, doesn’t have the capability to do this.
Go to our review, and go take a look at the image samples and read through it thoroughly. It’s impossible to otherwise get this look and still get suitable autofocus performance.
