Hangin' Eight, with Dave Black

Editor's note: You're gonna wanna watch this one in 720p, full-screen. So do yourself a favor and res-up now, to let it start loading in while you read.
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What do you get when you slap together 8 SB-900's, an SU-800, one RadioPopper transmitter, two receivers, two FourSquares and two sets of Michael Bass fiber optic bundles?

Well, you get $5,000.00 lighter in the wallet, for one thing.

But you also get a (32) AA-battery-powered monoblock with a 2-second recycle that can reach out and touch someone -- in TTL and/or via high-speed sync -- at very great distances.

And today, sports photographer Dave Black is gonna use it to make some rad surfing shots.

(Oh, and you'll also need $4800 for a Nikon D3s and another $5800 for the Nikon 200-400, too. Just saying.)

Hit the jump for another vid using a similar setup on motocross riders and a link to more speedlight insanity from Mr. Black.
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So, here is the 8-cylinder speedlight engine being used on motorcyclists at distance in full daylight conditions. Pretty impressive. And before you start whining about the cost (or logic, vs. real monos) for many this would be an ideal, lightweight solution.

Dave is a big TTL/FP sync user. So for him this makes more sense than a case of big lights which would limit his sync speed to 1/250th of a second.

You can see lots more from his excellent lighting website, Workshop at the Ranch.