Flash question

[Ernicus]

I have not read much, if at all, on flash use...kinds...types...so I'm pretty much still quite ignorant on all of it. I have a Sunpak Digiflash 3000. I have used it a few times and kinda fumbling my way through it. Today it did something weird.

We went to the kids school for a thing they had, and when I took pics of them in there, the flash would to off like a strobe light, I think 3x, then flash bigger and take the picture. The first few times I missed the shot cause I tured the camera to see what was going on...and yeah, hit me in the eyes. lol. anyway, is that normal? or is this thing broken? It has never done that before, always hits once I release shutter. Never did this strobe effect thing, then fire off and shutter.

 

[Josh66]

Not familiar with that flash, but I think it's one of two things -

It's flashing for AF assist, or it's flashing to figure out the exposure.

Was the flash in it's auto mode (assuming it has one)?

 

[Espike]

Sounds like it was doing the red eye reduction thingy. I'm not familiar with your flash unit, but that's what the on camera flashes do when red-eye reduction is turned on.

 

[Ernicus]

I think I have red eye reduction on in the camera. When I attach this flash, some of the flash options in camera dim out and are not usable.

This flash unit itself seems pretty basic. It's either on or off, and there is a test button on it. It's made to go with nikon, so the camera notices I have it attached and notices when it's on. If I don't have it on then the pop up will try to pop up. (thats how I know I forgot to turn it on, lol)

I dunno. It just seemed weird.

 

[Ernicus]

oh, and about the af assist. It has a rather large af assist light build in, that goes off at half press of shutter, luminates target etc....then when I depress shutter release all the way it did its strobe thingy. So I dunno how that would help af assist, probly the red eye thingy.

Seemed rather distracting though, made people blink and squirm face a bit, lol. Maybe it's a "make funny face" feature I have turned on by mistake.

 

[Espike]

Maybe it's a "make funny face" feature I have turned on by mistake.

LOL!

Anyway, try to turn off the red-eye reduc in camera before you attach and turn on the flash. Also, are you shooting in auto mode? That could force the red-eye reduc on I think.

 

[Ernicus]

Since it was acting crazy, I tried different modes. Didn't go full on auto, but I did try the scene mode for "kids", and P mode and then back to manual. I do recall screwing around with settings the other night in camera dealing with red eye...so I am betting that it is. I'll test it here in a bit and see. battery charging.

 

[Ernicus]

Thanks for your help, solved that issue. It was in fact a part of the "red eye reduction" thing in the camera settings. Set it back to normal and it flashed like normal, so it wasn't the flash at all.

 

[Espike]

Glad I could help.