The A700 should sync with the AlienBee, as suggested, up to 1/200th regardless of settings (officially 1/160th but I have tested cable-sync flash at 1/200th with consistently perfect results); and 1/250th with SSS off, and a good response from the flash units in terms of duration and slave sync timing. I think AlienBee strobes are a fairly short flash duration and will be unaffected. If you use longer duration studio flash, such as 1980s Bogen (Bowens) Monolites or Multiblitz Vario, ProFoto and similar high-end brands pre-1990, the actual flash have have a T=0.5 duration of 1/250th which means that if you use 1/250th you get exactly half the stated flash power. The 'tail' of the flash duration can take the overall meaningful duration (T=0.9) up to 1/60th, so to get the full output of these earlier large systems, you need to use 1/60th.
These flash units (typically 250-1000 Ws or Joules in rating) often have exceptionally high power modelling lamps. We used to work with two Multiblitz Vario 500s and one Vario 1000. They had 350W halogen bulbs in the 500s, and a 650W in the 1000, along with frosted covers for the modelling and tube together, and very noisy cooling fans. The long duration of the flash with these heads meant working at 1/30th or 1/60th was advisable to get maximum output, but you could also trim the exposure by using leaf shutter speeds to 1/500th. For a long time, we thought these heads had amazingly good colour, warm and vibrant. Then one day I ran a test to see how much of the exposure was being added by the modelling lamps at full power, and it turned out that at 1/30th sync speed, 1/3rd of the exposure was tungsten and 2/3rds flash! No wonder the colour was warm.
Since then I have always been careful with modelling light power. I like really bright modelling - it helps focusing and viewing - but if you combine it with a low flash output (my current Elinchrom flash heads allow separate control) you may end up with a significant part of the exposure being from the modelling light.
Good luck with the studio set-up. Here's an example of two strobe heads used with natural light and modelling light:
- Alpha 700 food shoot on location
Some of the light is from a window, creating the reflection in the gravy. The light striking the top of the potato tower from the right is a honeycomb gridded 44cm rigid square dish, flash. The beam of tungsten aimed at the meat (wild woodpigeon breast) from the left is the modelling lamp of a second head, with the flash turned off, through a conical snoot tube.
For comparison, here is a shot using just the two flash units, without natural light added, and without the tungsten modelling to change the colour of the meat:
- Alpha 700 flash only
For this job I used the 100mm f2.8 Minolta Soft Focus lens (without the soft focus turned up) which, for me, has the best colour and bokeh/feel of any similar lens for this type of work.
David