Slave sensor flash timing

yegods

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Hi all,

I've bought a pair 1600W external flash units. I'm having trouble trying to get them to flash in time with my canon 1000d built in flash. When I take a photo they do flash but don't seem to make any difference.
I have to use the built in slave sensors (triggered by the built-in flash) as I don't have a hot shoe flash. I've tried playing around with shutter times etc but they are still not hitting the mark. Anyone got any ideas on what I should be doing here.
 
Ahh... You've been had by the old TTL preflash trick. It's gotten us all at one time or another. The flash on you camera, works in TTL metering mode, where it fires a preflash to help calulate the flash exposure, then fires again during the the actual exposure. What's happening is that the preflash is triggering your lights, then they are not recycled in time to fire during the real exposure. Unless your popup flash has a manual mode where you determine the intensity, and it only fire once during the exposure, then you'll have to find another way to trigger them. Option would incluse a sync cord and hot shoe adapter, an external flash which is on the camera fired in manual, or wireless trigger like pocket wizards and the like.
 
Ahh... You've been had by the old TTL preflash trick. It's gotten us all at one time or another. The flash on you camera, works in TTL metering mode, where it fires a preflash to help calulate the flash exposure, then fires again during the the actual exposure. What's happening is that the preflash is triggering your lights, then they are not recycled in time to fire during the real exposure. Unless your popup flash has a manual mode where you determine the intensity, and it only fire once during the exposure, then you'll have to find another way to trigger them. Option would incluse a sync cord and hot shoe adapter, an external flash which is on the camera fired in manual, or wireless trigger like pocket wizards and the like.

Thanks for the quick reply GeneralBenson. I gues i'll have to get myself a hotshoe adapter to sync with these units. I have tried changing some flash settings where my build-in flash only fires one but I still don't get the result from the two External flash units. I've even tried taking a photo into one of the external flash units, it does flash but all I get is a photo of the bulb unlit.
 
thanks Big Mike, I'll check it out. I live in Ireland so i'll probably have to pay tax and duties in i buy these from the US. I'll try a wired setup first just to make sure my strobes can do the job before investing further. Thanks again for the help and I'll let everyone know how I got on, which I think is only fair after their help.
 
I live in Ireland so i'll probably have to pay tax and duties in i buy these from the US.
The cheap ones come directly from China (I think).
 

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