Skyports and the SB800... grrr

desantnik

desantnik

Suspended / Banned
Messages
9,848
Name
Vlad
Edit My Images
Yes
Finally got out to play with my Skyports last night and came across a curious problem.

I have two flashes - a SB900 and a SB800, both work no problem at all on camera.

The problem I was seeing was that after a little pause in the proceeding, the SB800 wouldn't fire on the first click (the SB900 did everytime). You could wake up the SB800 with a couple of pushes of the test button on the transmitter, but it was really annoying.

Is there anything I can do to stop the SB800 going to sleep like that?

BTW, this ISNT the problem reported (when I googled it) of the Skyport shutting down due to voltage feedback from the SB800 - the receiver remains on and happy and also if you keep banging away its quite happy to keep going, its just this "going to sleep" thing thats really annoying.

Anyone got any ideas?
 
This sounds like the SB800 is just going to sleep :thinking: Am I missing something or is it that simple? With Canon, you can change that in the flash's custom functions.
 
Well, I had hoped some SB800 could confirm and tell me how, but I've found the manual now and will be giving that a go.

BTW, the SB900 also has a standby mode but seems to come out of it just fine when hit with the firing pulse from the Skyports.

I guess Nikon made some more enhancements on their latest model.
 
I've had standby issues with dodgy batteries before. Try swapping out a fresh set if changing the setting doesn't fix it.
 
Was using freshly charged and almost brand new Eneloops in it (same as the SB900)
 
Turning off standby seems to fix it.

It is weird, the firing pulse wakes it up but doesn't fire it. It doesn't do that on the camera's hot shoe.

Anyway, the answer is either turn off standby (not sure what that will do to battery life!) or use SB900's which don't suffer from this "issue"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top