Remote trigger question

[Cocohoney]

Hi, we are very new to using studio lighting (struggling to get my head around the technicalities of it) and have an Interfit Stellar lighting kit second hand. The light which is plugged into the camera is firing on whatever we set it to, but sometimes the second light either fires lower than it is set, or not at all, sometimes it works fine. I am fairly sure it is the lead as it happens whichever of the two lights the camera is attached to.

Assuming that is the case, would a remote trigger be the way to go? Or are we missing something blindingly obvious and it is (again, sigh!) operator error.

Also, which remote trigger would be best for this set up?

Thank you!

 

[Richard King]

Hi, we are very new to using studio lighting (struggling to get my head around the technicalities of it) and have an Interfit Stellar lighting kit second hand. The light which is plugged into the camera is firing on whatever we set it to, but sometimes the second light either fires lower than it is set, or not at all, sometimes it works fine.

Well it sounds like the trigger for the second light is "optical", and thus it either is or isnt firing. Its pretty unusual for any flash to "change power" just because it isnt hooked up to a cable

Is the optical trigger sensor obscured in any way?

Yes a set of radio triggers will probrably help, but TBH, you need to get to the root of the current issue first. Does the second flash fire at all when the shot gets screwed up?

 

[Cocohoney]

Thanks for the reply- the second flash does fire, but it seems from the resulting shot that it is not firing on full power as it will be darker on that side than the other times (when it works correctly).

Initially we thought there was an issue with the power settings on one light, but when we moved the lead to be attached to that light, it fired correctly and the other one seems to have less power. It doesn't make sense, does it?

Occasionally the second flash (whichever that might be) is not firing at all.

We are using the soft boxes with them- could that be obscuring the optical trigger somehow? Could it be delay rather than power that is causing the darkness on the side of the second flash?

I don't think the lead connection is terribly good tbh, as there have been times where the connected flash doesn't fire- this has only been the odd time though.