Just received my RF602's and YN560.. a few stupid questions.

guybrush

guybrush

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Rebecca
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I've got a few questions..

I've used a flash unit before, whilst directly attached to the camera (500D) - and this set the maximum shutter speed to 1/200 I think it was, this doesn't appear to be happening with the RF602+YN560 set-up, is this normal? I know it's pointless going over 1/200 as there will just be black bars there, I just thought what with having the flash+receivers attached it would have recognized it automatically so to speak?

Now, I tend to always have shot everything in aperture priority, I assume this all goes out of the window when using manual flash lights as it doesn't appear to be taking into account the settings of the flash so it can't accurately meter? Time to just switch to manual or is there something really simple I've missed off which will allow me to retain aperture priority mode?

Also, these things are bright.. very bright! I seem to be able to shoot in near pitch black and perfectly expose half of my room (it's only a small room, granted) at 1/160 f13 ISO100 using my 40" softbox which I ordered last week.

I can tell I'm going to have a lot of fun with these over the next few weeks.. :)
 
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guybrush said:
I just thought what with having the flash+receivers attached it would have recognized it automatically so to speak?
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Nope. The camera doesn't 'see' the transmitter at all, it just sends a 'fire' signal over the hot shoe. If you look at the bottom of the transmitter, it has just one pin. Look at the bottom of a canon flash, and there's other pins that it sends data across, talking about sleep mode and power levels and the weather etc...

So yes, time to move to manual for flash work :D Remember, that shutter speed controls the amount of ambient light entering the camera, and the aperture controls both flash power and ambient.

Often if you want to still have the area that the subject is sitting in nicely lit, you will want to 'drag' the shutter at say 1/60th to let more ambient light in. However, if you are shooting someone against the bright sun outside, you want to drop the sun as much as possible, so want it at the highest sync speed that you can get away with, ie 1/200th, and then adjust flash power to suit.

and yep, surprisingly bright on full power :) Speedlights only really feel the heat when they're a long distance from the subject, or you're in a really bright place, eg shooting against the sun.
 
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They're dumb triggers, all they do is tell the flash to fire, nothing else.
You will be in full manual control of flash power etc, the camera won't help you :)
 
guybrush said:
I know it's pointless going over 1/200 as there will just be black bars there, :)
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Ever heard of mirror lock up ?
I think I'm correct in thinking that mirror lock up can deal with the black bar prob'.......
 
Mr Hankey said:
Ever heard of mirror lock up ?
I think I'm correct in thinking that mirror lock up can deal with the black bar prob'.......
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No it doesn't, the black bars is a limitation of the shutters physical movement speed.
 
Blasteh said:
No it doesn't, the black bars is a limitation of the shutters physical movement speed.
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but the black bar issue is only relevant if the area of the image is covered by flash. You can work around this in the field sometimes and occasionally get up to 1/400.
 
Hey,

Thanks for the replies, I've had a lot of fun playing with the set-up over the past few days. I'm just annoyed that I don't have a model and I've had to resort to using myself! Not the easiest thing in the world to be doing.

However the only thing that I'm disappointed by that I completely forgot to check beforehand was that I can't do rear-curtain sync. Is there any way of doing this with a YN560 on a Canon body? Through cables or something? :thumbsdown:
 
dunno I think rear curtain is a canon flash only thing, why do you want it I'ved used it all of twice
 
really long exposure and some hardcore test buttoning :p

if it works on shoe it will work on a long ttl cord
 
There's a limitation of the Canon hotshoe.. it only sends the fire signal at the start of exposure, there's no way around this other than ttl.
 
PW Multimax can give you rear curtain on Canon's
PW Flex / MiniTT1 may be able to.

There are some hacks using an on camera flash and optical trigger connected to your radio triggers, but there's no cheap way to get rear curtain sync off camera with a Canon body.
 
I really like the RF602 units. Mind the maximum voltage that they allow though (or you will need the thread I wrote about replacing the output transistor! <LINK>). :)
 
I've jt found out that I can do 2nd curtain sync on my LX3 using this trigger and my YN-560. I'm quite pleased about that, I can also go a little bit faster on my LX3 vs my 500D, only up to 1/320 but still!

Lots of fun to be had over the next few days. In other news though, my flash stand has broken already. The little cog that held the pole to the bottom plate snapped in half. That's not very good.. mind you I just need to put a new screw in place there and that'll be fine and dandy. I will definitely be going for some more expensive light stands though.
 
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I threw my YN560 down a flight of concrete stairs at work the other day, surprisingly enough it still works! Well, aside from the flappy bit (I have no idea what the technical term for that is) and bounce card which have both snapped off.

On the brightside however I've gone and ordered myself two more as I feel that I've comfortable got use to one light and now it's time to step it up a gear! However I do need some more light stands, I won't be buying the same one I bought last time as it was quite shoddy.
 
guybrush said:
I threw my YN560 down a flight of concrete stairs at work the other day, surprisingly enough it still works! Well, aside from the flappy bit (I have no idea what the technical term for that is) and bounce card which have both snapped off.

On the brightside however I've gone and ordered myself two more as I feel that I've comfortable got use to one light and now it's time to step it up a gear! However I do need some more light stands, I won't be buying the same one I bought last time as it was quite shoddy.
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The wide angle diffuser? (translucent plastic thing that spreads the light)

You got off lucky.. I dropped my sb25 from waist height on to concrete and the zoom motor broke! I have now set it on wide only, no more zooming :(

Then again, that flash doesn't have a zoom motor right?
 
Blasteh said:
The wide angle diffuser? (translucent plastic thing that spreads the light)

You got off lucky.. I dropped my sb25 from waist height on to concrete and the zoom motor broke! I have now set it on wide only, no more zooming :(

Then again, that flash doesn't have a zoom motor right?
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Actually it does, which is why I'm so surprised it still works. It didn't initially but that was just due to the batteries being low, they were quite a few scary minutes! Worked fine once I put new ones in though.

As for the diffuser, I figure I can still use it with a pit of sticky tape, won't be pretty but should still do the job?!

:)
 
Ohh, no.. one of my YN 560s has caved in?! I don't even know how, I was in the middle of a shoot on Saturday evening when I noticed one of my flashes had just stopped firing. Changed the batteries, tried it mounted directly to the camera and on different receivers but nothing worked. It just doesn't fire, although when I turn the sound back on it does do the beeping thing to indicate it has flashed (which it obviously hasn't).

I bought two at the same time by the same seller on ebay, just can't understand why one would just stop working. I've contacted the seller to see if they do repairs or if they know of a way to fix it.. but it's not looking good, is it?
 
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