Speedlite question

[mabbus]

Hi,
I was wondering if somebody can tell me what I am doing wrong. I have just started to take portrait images and was taking some of my daughter at the weekend. I was using 2 x 580 EXII's and 1 x 430 EXII. At first I set my speed to 1/250 at f8 and ISO 100 and ETTL using high-speed sync.

To start everything was fine. Then staying with ETTL and f8, I set my speed to 1/200 and disabled high-speed sync and all my images were coming back completely dark. I have seen many tutorials where these settings are used, but I have no idea why mine are coming back dark. Is there something I need to set up in camera? I have the Canon 5D MIII.

Bottom line is I only seem to get an image on high speed sync, and that can't be right?


Thanks for any help
Peter

 

[john5189]

try 1/160 or slower shutter speed.
The green light on the back of the flash/es should light to show the flashgun/s have fired.

 

[mabbus]

Thanks John, I have tried all the way down to 1/60 but the same result. I know the flashes are triggering, just don't understand why I am getting black images, unless I have something in camera set wrong

 

[Dao]

How did you trigger the flashes?

If you are not using high speed sync, changing shutter speed has no impact at all. 1 pulse of flash is much faster than your shutter speed.

 

[JSER]

Can I suggest you get a flash meter, pre owned from ebay, any minolta is good, and use manual settings

 

[JSER]

WHY are you using HSS ?????

This is what HSS is for

1/8000th of a second.

You don't need HSS for portrait.

 

[mabbus]

I'm triggering the flashes with a ST-E2. I only used HSS because it's the only thing that would bring back anything. If I switch it off I am not getting other then a dark image, this is what I don't understand. I wouldn't normally use HSS for portraits.

 

[mabbus]

OK, I decided to try the flash on camera and it's fine. The problem seems to be the ST-E2?

I was also trying to use a monolite but I think the pre-flash was setting it off to early. It seems all my problems have been sorted by taking off the ST-E2 and switching the flash from ETTL to manual as now I get results from the flash and monolite.

I am getting a phottix Odin at the end of the month, so will go into manual all the time, hopefully solving these issues. Dao's question on how am I triggering the flashes prompted me to think this route. So thanks for that.

Thanks for the replies and the help

 

[Solarflare]

You don't need HSS for portrait.

Err yes you need HSS for portrait ?

Only way to use fill flash in bright sunlight.

My camera cant do HSS, thats one of the main reasons why I am thinking about getting a different one.

 

[Dao]

I am not familiar with ST-E2, and I was worry about the "pre-flash" was the cause of the issue as well. I had a optical slave that suppose to work with pre-flash but since I shoot manual with flashes and never need pre-flash for AF or flash meter, so I do not how good that work.

Personally I like radio trigger because it does not need line of sight and works well in bright sunny day as well.