JTL 160 Strobe w/ softbox

[Jeffro]

Ok, My wife bought this for me for christmas cause she wanted to buy me something photography wise.

1. I have never owned a softbox but I have been looking into them alot.

2. There is no real instructions with them and the web site is more of a sales booth then information.

So here are some of my question. I set it all up which was pretty simple and was testing it to night

I only fires when my on camera flash is on full blast and it effects the photo alot. I tried to put the on camera flash down but then it wont trigger the flash. I tried it on commander mode and that was no luck. Am I going to have to but the inferred trigger?

Any other info yall have will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Derrel]

I have an older JTL strobe with a built-in photo slave. The slave must be turned on, of course, and on a modern d-slr, the flash needs to be set to a manual flash mode. I can easily and reliably trip the JTL monolight with a 1/4 power flash from a D70's inbuilt pop-up flash, which is the camera I have used the JTL monolight with the most.

With most d-slr cameras, the flash system fires a very slight "pre-flash" with the flash is used in one of its various automatic modes, which the camera measures feedback from to determine the needed power output for the main flash, which quickly follows the pre-flash. That pre-flash can fire the slave, but the camera's shutter will NOT synchronize with the pre-flash...so...you need to do something else, which is Manual flash mode.

Have you tried setting the camera's flash to a Manual mode, using the custom function menu on the camera? Not a TTL or E-TTL or D-TTl or i-TTL mode, but plain old fashioned Manual flash, at perhaps as little as 1/16 power or 1/8 power? That would be the first thing I'd try. An alternate thing some people have resorted to is using a foil "diverter", which accepts the entire output from a camera's pop-up flash unit, and shunts the flash output off to the side, aimed toward the monolight....a low-tech solution, but aluminum foil is fireproof and easy to work with. This diversion of the on-camera flash's output prevents an unwanted catchlight or reflection from appearing in the photo.

Let us know how it works out for you, okay?

 

[Jeffro]

Ok I will try some of that tonight after the SAINTS GAME!!! 17-3 saints right now!!! LOL

I am also thinking about looking at some of JTL wireless stuff.

Radio controlled or inferred or something like that! Tuesday me and a friend are doing a little practice shoot so I hope to have it all figured out by then!


I was thinking that I would put my sb 600 and reverse it or aim it at the strobe to like you said!

 

[Jeffro]

I was looking back at JTL page and their wireless stuff looks like uuuhh crap.

What are some good brand names for wireless controls? The strobe has a female plug so most should work with it. I am now new to lighting so I have so much more to learn