Hello to the PhotoForum! Anyone know about strobe lighting?

[DebSturm]

Thanks jw, for the info. and the welcome. It's nice to find a "nice" place to get some answers about photography! I'm really excited to have found this site. Deb

 

[DebSturm]

Hi Robin, I don't have my hot shoe unit yet, it should arrive by Friday. I will then attempt the procedure you have suggested, I have a feeling I will have good results. I'll let you all know later. Thank you all again! Deb

 

[cgipson1]

Hi Charlie, I'm Deb. Thanks for the info. everyone here is being SO helpful and kind. I'm impressed. I'm so tired of people who are condescending and stingy with their experience, this place is a breath of fresh air. I will check out the pocket wizards for remote, and again, thank you. Deb

Hello Deb,

Pocket Wizards are very versatile, and one of the best choices IMO... but also more expensive than some of the other choices. Do a little research and get what you need... ask questions here as needed. The monolights are manual only.... in that they won't work with TTL (auto flash exposure, basically)... so you don't really need wireless triggers that are TTL capable for instance.

 

[cgipson1]

Hi Robin, I don't have my hot shoe unit yet, it should arrive by Friday. I will then attempt the procedure you have suggested, I have a feeling I will have good results. I'll let you all know later. Thank you all again! Deb

You don't even need a hot shoe unit to test that.... use the pop-up flash on your camera (assuming it has one)... set the monolights to slave, and fire. They should go off!

 

[DebSturm]

LOL! Photography may be new to me, but good people are not, and I think I may have found a nest of them here! Thanks for the smile. Deb

 

[DebSturm]

Gotcha! Man, you guys are soooooooooooo helpful! Thanks! Deb

 

[jwbryson1]

If you don't want to spend the $$$ on Pocket Wizards (2wheelphoto will be devastated!), then you can go dirt cheap with Cowboy Studio radio triggers, seen here Amazon.com: CowboyStudio NPT-04 4 Channel Wireless Hot Shoe Flash Trigger Receiver: Camera & Photo
These work fine but they can misfire at times. Some people swear by them. I own a set as "backup" only.

My primary radio triggers are these units which are priced mid-range: Amazon.com: Strato II Wireless 5 in 1 Trigger Set for Nikon: Electronics

 

[cgipson1]

I would strongly advise against Cowboy Studio anything..lol! (But I will admit, that is a personal bias!)

But the Stratos that Jeff mentions above, or the Yongnuo's, or some others mentioned in previous threads that you can search for.. will do fine for starting out. If you want professional level gear, the Pocket Wizards, Radio Poppers, and some of the Lighting manufacturer OEM stuff is good!

 

[kundalini]

I have been using Paul C Buff CyberSync's for a few years now without any misfiring. I use them for speedlights and monolights. If you want to optically slave your lights, you would only need one trasmitter and one receiver. However, I have a receiver for each light, perhaps that explains no misfiring.


Paul C. Buff - CyberSync™

 

[Robin_Usagani]

I would strongly advise against Cowboy Studio anything..lol! (But I will admit, that is a personal bias!)

It is $28 bucks and you get 1 transmitter and 2 receivers. What do you expect? You cant beat the price and it does what it is supposed to do.


Cowboy studio trigger has played a HUGE role in my photography development. I have dropped and stepped on one receiver before. It broke.. guess what.. I didnt feel bad. $12 down the toilet.. no biggie. If it wasnt because of Cowboy studio trigger, I wont learn OCF as early as I did and may still be a "natural light" photographer.


Now if you lose your PW.. you may cry.

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Welcome aboard Deb!

 

[cgipson1]

I would strongly advise against Cowboy Studio anything..lol! (But I will admit, that is a personal bias!)

It is $28 bucks and you get 1 transmitter and 2 receivers. What do you expect? You cant beat the price and it does what it is supposed to do.


Cowboy studio trigger has played a HUGE role in my photography development. I have dropped and stepped on one receiver before. It broke.. guess what.. I didnt feel bad. $12 down the toilet.. no biggie. If it wasnt because of Cowboy studio trigger, I wont learn OCF as early as it was and may still be a "natural light" photographer.

They are ok to learn with I suppose, as long as you don't need absolute reliability. I have never actually used the Cowboy triggers, but have ordered two different strobe frames from them because they provided what I needed.. both of which literally fell apart when I tried to use them.

Now if you lose your PW.. you may cry.

Nope ... they are insured... or I would just buy another! Five is enough for now though...

 

[Robin_Usagani]

Now if you lose your PW.. you may cry.

Nope ... they are insured... or I would just buy another! Five is enough for now though...

Dude.. come on.. you wont contact your insurance when you lose one trigger. You have deductible you know. My deductible is $250. If I lose my 50mm f/1.4 lens, I wont bother contacting them.

 

[cgipson1]

Now if you lose your PW.. you may cry.

Nope ... they are insured... or I would just buy another! Five is enough for now though...

Dude.. come on.. you wont contact your insurance when you lose one trigger. You have deductible you know. My deductible is $250. If I lose my 50mm f/1.4 lens, I wont bother contacting them.

If I only lost one or two.. yes. If I lost all of them, I would probably also lose other gear, since they are all in whatever bag I am using at the moment... that would go to insurance! lol!

 

[osumisan]

I have read this thread and just want to clarify that I understood the information correctly:

I am learning the art of studio shooting and am blown away at how some of the seemingly simple tasks still take careful planning. In trying to combine a studio strobe with an SB600 speedlight, I get confused and this thread seems to cover the subject. I have been able to fire my strobe (cheap JL 180v eBay purchase) with it connected to my D700 via sync cable AND with it connected via wireless transmitter (another cheap eBay purchase). My SB600 has worked fine on camera and off-camera in slave mode. I want to use them together and seem to be missing a detail.

Senario: D700 connected to strobe via sync cable, and SB600 is in slave mode off-camera (channel 3, group A). Should the strobe trigger the SB600 in this situation? On the camera menu, is the strobe the 'built-in flash' and SB600 is 'group A'? Should both be set in TTL mode or only one? Do I need to have the on-board flash popped up in this situation to trigger the SB600?

I am confused as to if the on-board flash is 'built-in flash' and strobe AND SB600 are classified as groups A and B or if whichever flash is connected via sync cable is considered on-board flash? Could I have worded this any worse

My main problem is I seem to get one flash to fire or the other, but not both.