
Profoto, the maker of the B1 AirTTL portable flash system, has posted a teaser on its web site entitled “Could It Be?” with a poster featuring a large “H”, accompanies by two “S”es on social media accounts. Many commenters believe this to herald to the release of high-speed sync (HSS) support in the Profoto B1, which would give it it almost all the features of a clip-on speedlight in a much larger, more powerful and versatile package.
Up to now, the B1 AirTTL 500 — a battery-powered flash designed for location work — offers remote power control and triggering, including TTL auto-exposure metering with Nikon and Canon camera systems. High-speed sync support, or the ability to use shutter speeds faster than about 1/250 second, has been sorely lacking, but is already available in one form or another via competing systems from China as well as the German-made Priolite MBX HotSync.
According to Profoto’s teaser, the “H”, “S” and “S” will be launched on 15 December 2014 and published via the company blog and on social media. It is not clear whether the timing of this new feature is mainly down to technical progress, marketing strategy or a bit of both. The manufacturer has been openly working on this feature for months, yet still saw fit to make a teaser.
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