What I discovered today

[Ron Evers]

A LED ring flash will not trigger a slave flash. Even when facing the LED @ very close range. I tried with two different slaves.

Ron, wondering why.

 

[pgriz]

Ron, what's an LCD flash? Do they make LCD's now that are powerful enough to replace flash tubes? Or did you mean something else?

 

[Overread19 7]

Personally I've found that flashes triggered off the pulse of light from another flash are not the most reliable. In dim lighting indoors they normally work ok, but outside in bright sunlight they tend to fail. It might be that the ringflash isn't giving an intense enough single point pulse of light that the detector is looking for and thus its ignoring it.

Personally I think the only way to properly go with this is radio wireless remote controllers - either a cheap set like Cactus or Yongo or step up and pay for the Pocket Wizards.

 

[fjrabon]

usually LED's aren't bright enough and/or can't reproduce the required pulse pattern.

 

[Ron Evers]

Ron, what's an LCD flash? Do they make LCD's now that are powerful enough to replace flash tubes? Or did you mean something else?

These are low power flashes or continuous light for macro work only, effective for distances as seen in the pic. I was experimenting using window light on the right side & using the flash left side only to light a subject. That was not working to my satisfaction so I sought to brighten the left side with a slave.

This is what I was getting with left half of the flash working:

The flash can be full circle or right or left half.


OR, this is not a radio trigger device but direct hot shoe driven.

 

[BekahAura]

I have an LCD ring light also, but I haven't tried to set off another flash in slave. Now I won't be shocked when it doesn't work though.

Does your ring light have a continuous light mode? If so just keep it on and use either a cord or wireless trigger to set off the other flash.

 

[fjrabon]

wait, so you really did mean LCD and not LED?

 

[Ron Evers]

wait, so you really did mean LCD and not LED?

OOps, LED it is, I will edit the OP.

 

[pgriz]

In that situation, I'd be tempted to use PC cords to connect the flashes together and trigger them. That would also imply setting up the "slave" manually to give the right amount of light relative to your main light. I have a hot-shoe adapter that wil allow me to use a PC sync cord, and then I have a three-way splitter that allows me to trigger up to three flashes using the sync cords. Of couse, the power for each flash has to be adjusted manually to give the right amount of light.

 

[Ron Evers]

In that situation, I'd be tempted to use PC cords to connect the flashes together and trigger them. That would also imply setting up the "slave" manually to give the right amount of light relative to your main light. I have a hot-shoe adapter that wil allow me to use a PC sync cord, and then I have a three-way splitter that allows me to trigger up to three flashes using the sync cords. Of couse, the power for each flash has to be adjusted manually to give the right amount of light.

I have the resources to do that but was trying to keep it simple. This was my first attempt @ a product shoot & there is obviously much wrong.

 

[BekahAura]

HAHAHA I said LCD too... I meant LED, Ron it's all your fault!

Why don't you try getting rid of the ring light and just using the diffused light from the flash? I think it looks pretty good except for the reflection directly in front.

 

[Patrice]

I think it has more to do with the frequency of the emitted light than of the power of the light. Most of the slave triggers I know of are triggered by infrared light. Speedlights and monolights both emit in this frequency range as well as the visible spectrum.


Ron, maybe your ring flash does not emit any infrared light.

 

[pgriz]

Ron, I see we both have the same model of lightbox. As for doing "product" shots, I have tried using the Canon's ETTL wireless method and found it to be hit-and-miss. More reliable, but with more putzing-around, is using either manual+radio triggers, or manual+PC cords.

 

[Ron Evers]

I think it has more to do with the frequency of the emitted light than of the power of the light. Most of the slave triggers I know of are triggered by infrared light. Speedlights and monolights both emit in this frequency range as well as the visible spectrum.


Ron, maybe your ring flash does not emit any infrared light.

I surmised it was something like this, since even held a few inches from the flash, the slave did not fire.

 

[Ron Evers]

Thanks for the tips pgriz.