Need help! in studio using strobe lights

bamber · Jan 2, 2014

Need help please!
I am shooting in the studio with 2 Alien Bee b800 strobes (older), sony camera with a flash, using slave mode. About every 20-25 shots I get one good one where the strobes go off and my camera is capturing it. Sometimes just one strobe will go off. Other times they are going off but my photo is dark. What is happening? Can I fix this, do I need to buy new studio lights?

tirediron · Jan 2, 2014

What mode is your camera & flash set to? What are your exposure settings? The first thing that comes to mind is that your in an 'Auto' mode and the strobes are being by the TTL pre-flashes from your on-camera speedlight. The reason it works once in a while (I'm guessing) is that every so often your position is such that the optical trigger on the strobes can't see the pre-flash. Your best bet would be to purchase a set of radio triggers (Yongnuo is an inexpensive, well regarded consumer brand). In the meantime, there should be a way to turn the pre-flashes off which might be as simple as setting both the flash and camera to full manual. I do not think however you need to get new strobes.

bamber · Jan 2, 2014

Camera is shutter priority 60th of a second, shooting f5.0. Flash is on fill-flash mode.
I will try it on full Manual and see how that works - thank you so much!

tirediron · Jan 2, 2014

Also check the manual for the speedlight and camera for any information on TTL & pre-flashes.

bamber · Jan 2, 2014

Okay, thank you!

Mach0 · Jan 2, 2014

tirediron said:
What mode is your camera & flash set to? What are your exposure settings? The first thing that comes to mind is that your in an 'Auto' mode and the strobes are being by the TTL pre-flashes from your on-camera speedlight. The reason it works once in a while (I'm guessing) is that every so often your position is such that the optical trigger on the strobes can't see the pre-flash. Your best bet would be to purchase a set of radio triggers (Yongnuo is an inexpensive, well regarded consumer brand). In the meantime, there should be a way to turn the pre-flashes off which might be as simple as setting both the flash and camera to full manual. I do not think however you need to get new strobes.

Haha! There you go. Not to thread hijack but I did a gig this past year. I shoot nikon and the person I covered it with shot sony so he couldn't use my wireless set up. We had the same issue when using his speedlight to trigger the ab800. We couldn't figure out why his pics were dark when we used the same settings. lol!

Derrel · Jan 2, 2014

My guess: the flash is in an automartic, TTL controlled mode, which fires a pre-flash a tiny bit before the "real" flash fires; The slaved lights sense this pre-flash, and fire BEFORE the shutter is opened.
MY feeling: figure out how to switch the Sony to a MANUAL-power output setting, and use it at low power, likie 1/8 power, and that will synchronize the monolights on the slaves with the SHUTTER.

If the Sony does not have manual flash power option, and I think the lower-end ones did not, then buy a small, low-tech flash that slides into the hotshoe, an older, low-cost "cheapie", and use that as a flash triggering unit with the slaves. I have an old, small Pentax shoe-mount flash that I can set to its "f/4 AUTO" mode, and it fires out a pipsqueak-like pop of flash, and it triggers my slaved studio flash units very reliably. It's a TINY flash unit, smaller than my Pocket Wizards, which replaced it!

CCericola · Jan 2, 2014

Spend the $30 for the youguno flash sync trigger for Sony. (At Amazon). Set your main light and fill light how you want them. Set your camera to manual. Choose an ISO. Typically 100 when you use studio strobes. Set your camera no higher than the flash sync speed for your camera (see your manual). Use a flash meter or trial and error and dial in the corresponding f stop to get a good exposure. Then shoot til your heart's content.