 Christopher A. Vedros |
Canon 420EX and slave strobes My daughter fell at school last week, and has a very swollen black eye. She had to have her picture taken Saturday to put in the program for her upcoming dance recital. So there's my little princess, in her polka-dot dress and tap shoes, with a shiner like Rocky. I brought my camera along just in case, and when the photographer saw the black eye, she asked if I thought I could fix it on the computer. I said I could and that's why I had my camera. Since she was shooting film, she suggested I use my camera and bring them a print after it is fixed. She had strobes and umbrellas set up, and said that my flash would trigger the strobes as slaves. I used a Digital Rebel on P mode with a 420EX Speedlite. I took several shots which looked a little dark on my LCD, but I was in a hurry since there was a long line of girls waiting. When I checked the pictures later at home they were VERY underexposed. I think I know what went wrong, but was looking for some confirmation and comments from the gang here. I've read that the Speedlite fires a pre-flash to meter the flash exposure, then fires the main flash. Is it possible that the pre-flash triggered the strobes, then they were recycling when the actual picture was taken? The exposure was 1/60, at f8, which is what the photographer said she had metered, but the pictures are so dark it looks like there was no light from the strobes, and maybe a weak flash from my camera. Does my theory about the pre-flash sound right? If so, what should I have done differently? Thanks!
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Kerry L. Walker |
Most likely that is what happened. Slaves will fire when any flash is fired, pre-flash or regular flash. If you can turn the pre-flash off, do so when using slaves. You should be able to improve the photo in Photoshop.
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Christopher A. Vedros |
Thanks Kerry. Does anyone know if the preflash can be disabled on the 420EX? It doesn't really have a manual mode, as far as I know. I wonder if it would have worked better using the built-in flash to trigger the strobes.
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anonymous |
Nope it can't be disabled which is a pain! Definitely it was the preflash. You can only use the 420EX as a slave with multiple slaves and have a flash on your camera that doesn't "preflash" for it to work properly. But you can't use it with strobes.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
try getting off program mode into manual
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