Canno EOS Digital Rebel XT Lighting Issues

We have a cannon digital rebel xt and two photogenic powerlight 1250. One power

light is a soft box and the other is a strobe with an umbrella. The problem is I

can not get the strobe to fire when the lights detect the flash from the camera.

The strobe just goes off and then back on kinda like turning a light switch on

and off.

 

Most of the photos turn out rather dark. Is there a resource or manual for the

lights? Does anyone know how to fix this problem?

Your problem is most likely that the pre-flash from your on-camera strobe is triggering the strobe at the wrong time.

 

To troubleshoot this problem you need a hot-shoe adapter and a sync cord so you can connect the camera directly to the Photogenic strobe. If it fires correctly, and the 2nd one fires from the 1st, you've sorted it.

 

I don't believe it's possible to use the on-camera "pop-up" flash to trigger studio strobes successfully.

 

<Chas>

There are a variety of solutions:

 

http://www.eosdoc.com/manuals/?q=blankFEL

I guess you are American from the XT designation of your camera - I had a 350D here in England, which is the same camera - you have the strobes, so I wondered why you are using the on-camera flash to trigger, when the digital radio-flash is now so cheap. I bought a 16-channel Chinese one on ebay for $36, which has a small transmitter for the camera, and a plug-in trigger/reciever for your strobe. Nothing else is needed, apart from the batteries, which are the small pen-cell type (AAA here) and a 9volt small battery for the transmitter. They supply all the batteries, and give a spare transmitter battery as a present. I have only praise for the idea - I have always wanted one, but they used to be only available here for over 100 English Pounds or so. Now, I hope never to use anything else for triggering. There are many advantages - you can set up the lights at a wedding, or party, or whatever, and only your camera will trigger them, so you get the shot, and no-one else, and you can move around without being out of light range with on-camera strobe, as the radio signal is not so dependent on line of sight to trigger. I don't want to advertise, so will just say the type I bought can be seen on ebay number 200202584768. I love the fact that you can used multiple triggers, all tuned in to the same channel, to trigger as many strobes as you have. You have obviously gone digital for the camera and the strobes, now why not follow on with the flash trigger! Neat and Professional at an amateur price - with the real use of the word amateur - done for love of the thing!

Oops, Sorry! I said "so I wondered why you are using the on-camera flash to trigger, when the digital radio-flash is now so cheap" It should of course read "when the digital radio flash trigger is now so cheap".

 

My apologies for confusion!