Strobes not firing consistent - What do I do/need?

[jayme_isham]

I am new at studio lighting and have acquired two Photogenic

monolights for my basement studio. I have a PL1250 for a main light

and a PL1500 for a fill. The main (with an umbrella) is directly

behind the camera (Olympus 5060 with a FL-40 flash) and the fill

(with a softbox)is in between the main and subject at a 45 degree

angle.

 

Here's the problem... the lighting is low enough that the FL-40

fires each strobe independently but when I turn them both on I do

not get the fill light to fire consistently. The main light has no

problems firing.

 

So do I have to wire the fill with a sync cable?

If I do that, do I need to wire both strobes together from the

camera and do I use the Wein safe sync with my FL=40 on top of that?

 

I guess my biggest confusion is in all of the adapters and how to

hard wire this setup. Plus I just wanted to know if I was missing

something to let the slaves pickup the flash without going through

the trouble of wiring it all.

 

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP!

[richard_cochran]

I assume you're trying to fire the lights using the optical slaves

that are built into the lights?

<p>

Something strange is going on. If I understand correctly,

you're saying that, if you turn the main light off, your FL-40

will fire the fill light, but if you turn the main light on, and

leave everything else identical, the fill light doesn't always fire.

<p>

That seems strange because in the second case, the fill light sees

BOTH the main light and the FL-40. The first light should

trigger it anyway, but if the first light isn't enough to trigger

it, the other should do the trick. Slaves will respond fast enough

that it doesn't matter whether it triggers on the camera-mounted

light or on a second light that was triggered by the first.

<p>

I've got a couple of Photogenic PL1250s, and I've never had one

fail to fire indoors. I've occasionally had minor problems

outdoors when there was no line of sight between the triggering

flash and the slave's eye, but I could fix this by arranging a

reflector to bounce a little light from a hardwired flash into

the slave's eye.

<p>

An obvious solution is something

like Pocket Wizards, but plain optical slaves should work fine for an

indoor studio where you don't have other flashes going off.

<p>

Another possibility that sometimes helps is to get a Wein Peanut

slave or similar and connect it to your troublesome flash by a

sync cord. Position the peanut slave where it can clearly see

the light of a well-triggered strobe.

[Jochen_S]

1st thought: Does your fill flash recharge slower than the main? 2nd: maybe you could help the sensor with some reflective material. This could be useful if your studio is painted dark and the softbox prevents the sensor from optical contact to the other flashes. If you use a hotshoeflash as trigger, why don't you wire some high sensity slave cell to the "blindest" flash?

[ken_burns1]

This is a common problem with built in slave sensors if you are operating the flash heads at very low power settings. The slave sensor in the fill flash head attached to the soft box is directed away from the light sources that are supposed to fire it as well as being obscured behind the soft box. A sure cure for the problem is to use a Wein peanut attached to that flash head via a sync cord. I always use a clothes pin to position the peanut onto a front edge of the soft box where it will be struck directly by light from the other flash heads.

 

By the way, the old standard in photography is to position the fill as close to the camera as possible and place the key at about a 45 degree angle from the lens axis.

[steve_hovland]

The fill in the umbrella may not be getting enough light to trigger.

 

I often use a business card in front of the on-camera flash to bounce light back into the fill.

 

If the on-camera flash has a tilt head point it up and tape a card to the front side to spill light back to the fill unit.

 

Another way is to put a small flash with a slave in front of the camera pointed into the umbrella.

 

I also use this technique when I have to trigger flashes spread over a large area or around corners. One or more small flashes are used purely to trigger the distant flashes and have little or no effect on subject lighting.

[jayme_isham]

Your responses have been very helpful... I mistakenly called the light behind the camera my Main and its the "Fill" with the one on the 45 degree angle is the "Main". Sorry about that!

 

But the fact of the matter remains that the "Main" with the softbox is not consistent. This may sound stupid.... but where is the actual sensor for the slave? With the softbox on the light, what part of the light am I supposed to be ensuring the flash is hitting (the back or the front)?

 

Should I be at all concerned that the "Main" light is being fired by the other strobe and could possibly be firing but not captured within the shutter speed that I have set?

 

Again... thanks for your help!