ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

[mickledore]

Hi there. I'm trying to do some bursting balloon type shots. I have an old Mazof trigger which works on the noise from my air pistol. Unfortunately it only allows the flash - 580EXII - to work in ETTL mode. This gives out a pre-flash, which as I'm in a dark studio with a 1 sec exposure results in two images being recorded every time. I can get access to an additional flash to use as a slave, and can switch off the main flash, but the pre flash still works. Is there anyway of knocking off he pre-flash, or is it something I'm stuck with in ETTL mode?

[katokid]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

Have you tried the flash setting in manual mode?

[briansquibb]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

Use the camera in Manual mode - try f/8 at 1/200 at iso 200

[Trevoreast]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

I have an old Mazof trigger which works on the noise from my air pistol. Unfortunately it only allows the flash - 580EXII - to work in ETTL mode.

Is manual mode is an option, given the above ?

Trev

[mickledore]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

Manual mode is NOT an option. The trigger simply will not work in anything other than ETTL mode. The flash can be set as master or slave, but Manual or multi operation is not possible.

The camera is in manual, but the flash is not connected to it in any way, and the trigger is not Canon, and if it was it's so old that my 5DII probably wouldn't work with it.

I've got round it - sort of - by switching off the main flash, hiding the unit out of sight of the object being photographed, and borrowing a 580 from my next door neighbour to use as a slave, which I can use in manual.

That's a long winded procedure, and it will probably work out cheaper to buy a new trigger that will allow manual operation as opposed to buying a new flash unit - even a 430 will cost more.

[Trevoreast]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

and it will probably work out cheaper to buy a new trigger

That was my initial thought.

I'm still trying to understand the relationship between a sound activated trigger and ettl.

I have a suggestion/ question.
Could you possibly use the FEL button to fire the preflash, this remains locked for a number of secs. ?
Worth a try.

Trev

[Trevoreast]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

I hope you come up with a solution I was thinking about getting one of these triggers myself.

Are you saying the pre-flash and the main flash give you a double flash exposure ?

I've never heard of the pre-flash contributing to an exposure.

Trev

[mickledore]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

Well, it's a very old trigger.
When I connect it to my flash, the flash will only work in ETTL mode. That appears to be the fault of the trigger. We have been setting the trigger off by using an air gun. The noise is picked up by the trigger which then sets off the flash. There is one flash unit connected via the PC socket to the trigger. This is set as the master, and we have another flash set up as a slave. The slave is on manual at 1/64.
But...with the master flash in ETTL there is a pre flash. So, we are shooting in near darkness, 1 second exposure. We are bursting balloons, coke cans, eggs. Anything that explodes on impact with an air gun pellet.
The noise of the gun activates the trigger, which sends a pulse to the flash wired up to it, and which is acting as a master. But...there is a preflash because this unit must be in ETTL or it won't work. So we get a preflash and as we are in near total darkness on a one second exposure the camera registers an image. A millisecond or so later, while the shutter is still open, the main flash goes and a second image is recorded.
As mentioned above we've got round it by hiding the master where the flash can't be seen, but where it's signal can still be picked up. But this means that we need an extra flash unit. It's cheaper to buy an up to date trigger than another flash unit. There's a guy near here builds them and has one on test at the moment that I might buy. However if I could de-activate the preflash I wouldn't need to spend my hard earned, but I suspect that it is an inbuilt feature of ETTL and can't be bypassed.

[Trevoreast]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

Well, it's a very old trigger.

I hope it won't cause any damage, maybe try an optical hotshoe slave with pc sync port.

Trev

[mickledore]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

Well we sorted it. Hide the master 580 flash so that the preflash can't be seen, and use two 580 units as slaves. This is one of those we shot. I quite like this.


Messing with Mike18 by Frank Yates2010, on Flickr

[DeeGee]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

Didn't realise that is was a balloon, thought it was a bottle. The egg on flickr looks good.

[mickledore]

Re: ETTL problem. Anyone able to help?

Thanks. The egg was when we were getting cocky. We decided to use flash strobes, and went back to multi flash - getting the extra images that we'd been so keen to get rid of earlier!!!