Lighting Tip: Decreasing the Minimum Power of Your Speedlight

I use a Nikon SB-800 and its minimum manual power level is 1/128.  That is true for Canon's 580EX II as well.  But what if you needed to get even less power than that?

If you use TTL, you can get a lower power threshold, but I know many strobists are loathe to use TTL.  The solution is easy - increase your shutter speed to force the flash to go to high speed sync.  HSS will reduce the power of your flash by at least 2 stops.  With HSS, the 1/128 output effectively becomes as low as 1/512!