D700, SB-800 and Pocket Wizards - question

[miklosphoto]

I have a question on this set up, using D700 with SB-800 triggered by Pocket Wizards.

My problem is that after some idle time, approximately 1 or 2 minutes, the shutter release won't trigger the

SB-800 but sort of wakes it up and then the second second release does trigger. This is very annoying in studio

environment, that I have to take a shot just to wake up the speedlite.

If the idle time is just few seconds, I do not have this problem. Interestingly, after a minute or two, I

checked whether the SB-800 went in stand by, it did not, the display is on.

I am using both the camera and the flash in full manual mode, but I do not think it has anything to do with this

problem.

Any ideas how to fix this issue?

Thanks for any help, suggestion.

Miklos

[ty_mickan]

I think you should be able to switch the 'standby' mode on the flash off.

[jerry_schuler]

The pocket wizard I have has a little button on top of the transmitter that triggers the flash. Before I take a photo, I

press the button to initate the flash (the dud flash fire) that wakes up the flash unit. I just assume it goes into sleep

mode to save battery power. It's not a big problem to me. I'm just in the habit of pressing the button before I shoot.

[michaelseto]

Miklos,

 

You can switch the Standby mode to off - it is one of the menu functions; it gives you Auto, 40 80 ... a few choices on the number of seconds for the flash to wait. At the bottom is "---" and this turns off the Standby function, which you will see in the status display as "STBY---" Usually this reads "STBY AUTO." Should solve that issue.

[lex_jenkins]

Ditto the standby option. Just turn it off to keep the SB-800 awake full time.

 

Back in the day LPA offered an optional pre-release device for use with Pocket Wizards to keep the attached device awake. I'm not sure whether it's necessary with the SB-800. Never tried it since disabling the flash standby feature solves the problem.

[andy a.]

up the timouts on your sb-800s. I believe I have mine all set to 5 minutes, and the wizard

problem has largely gone away.