What do I do now? Portaflash or something else?

Gilly B

Gilly B

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Gillian
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Thanks to all the helpful peeps who assisted me in my other thread on camera sync speeds for studio set up. Got some great baby portraits which I will let you see later.

I would like some advise on what to do with my lights etc.

I have the Jessops Portaflash system - 3 main heads and a wide angle slave head, with the various stands, softbox, brollies, snoot etc. I added to the 1 main head with the other 2 over about a 6 month period from private sellers on e-bay.

I have a problem with one of the heads and can't work out what is causing it. If I explain what happens, then I am hoping that someone at TP will say - ah, this is xxx.

Set up 2 heads pointing to background, with the 3rd on my right hand side as the key light and the small slave on my left. The key light wouldn't fire using the test button or using as a slave from one of the other head's test button. It wouldn't fire using the camera shutter with radio trigger attached. Now you would think - fine it's kn******ed. :annoyed: Then touch or hover near the small white dome on top (slave cell) and it fires a flash. I have tried it with the modelling lamp on, off, taken it out, checked the fuse, switched it off and on again 20 minutes later. It recycles okay and ready to go, but nothing. In a bit of strop earlier, I swapped one of the background heads for this duff one and thought stuff it, I will photoshop the White background to match the other side. The portrait shoot went well, but the light did not fire at all. My husband said ah its this, erm no, it could be that. We have no idea what's wrong with it. Could it be a faulty photo cell on top?

I have to buy another head for my next shoot in a couple of weeks time. Do I buy another one off e-bay or consider another outfit of better quality? Of course I know you get what you pay for. I have a small studio space and don't do portraits every day professionally. Every 6 months I spend a whole day doing family portraits and need the reliability and consistency.

What do you guys have in your studios and why did you choose those particular ones.

I am skint at the moment, but thinking long term, should I buy one good quality head and then add to it later. If I go down this route, can you mix different heads in the same room and sync them from a radio trigger?

Ooooooh! problems, questions I don't know what to do. :bang: :bang: :bang:
 
Gilly, I am confused of Dunnet now. I've just looked at your gallery. Why did you need me to describe 'Hi Key' method when you seem to be quite
proficient already? I'll get to your prob. later when I've had a think.
 
Sharkey - thanks for your comments. However, if you only knew how much photoshopping I do to achieve that. I seem to know what I want, but until you helped out the other night, I just couldn't get it right in camera. You wanna see the shots I got today then - you will be proud of me! :lol:

I will post some later. Gillian
 
Clearly, Gilly B, you need to sell me your 50 and 85 mm lenses, lend me your flash heads, and then congratulate yourself on how much you are doing to help me..
You may find that this will help you keep your hair longer..
 
Oi! Steve no-one's getting their paws on my prime glass. Studio lights - Am I fed up or what? Just when you think you have cracked it - the light packs up.

This is a secret shhh! :suspect: Come closer and I will whisper......... My Avatar is really my daughter. You really don't want to see me :gag:
 
Hey, if you can produce such a beautiful daughter then you can't be so bad..
As for getting my paws on your prime....You may have heard just what a cool cat I am, but I don't have paws.. (OK, I know that is rather bad, but it is early in the morning..)
I'll be trying to post some pictures in my gallery soon (never done it, so unsure how) of my daughters - they are beautiful too..... like I wouldn't say that..
 
Hi Gilly,

It sounds like you have some very poorly electronics in that head. There is obvioulsy nothing wrong with the main gubbins as it will fire, however strangely.

There is nothing wrong with portaflash stuff and if the power levels are OK for you then there is little to be gained by choosing another budget make. If you wanted to stretch the budget to something a little more robust like a bowens or similar that would make sense but wouldn't actually produce any difference in the shots.

I still have a little army of 400 and 800 powerflash heads (the big brother to portaflash) and whilst they are ancient and rather basic the mostly still work OK. Every now and then one will blow up with a spectacular bang and cloud of smoke and I start planning to get somethng more up to date. Then I take into jessops just to see if there is any chance for it and they end up fixing it for £2.48 or something daft.

I'd love some nice fancy lights but as long as the old jesssops heaps keep going, there's no point just buying a label.
 
Thanks Dazzajl. That has given me a bit more confidence with the Portaflash stuff. Looking back, I have had no trouble from this system until I bought 2 more lights and then sometimes they would fire and then not. I always accidentally mixed the flash heads up after packing them away, so I couldn't track which one was faulty. Until now that is. It was obviously the one I bought through E-bay. The strange thing is you only had to get really close to it or brush past it and it would fire several times one after the other - wierd. I did not know you can get them repaired. I will ring Jessops tomorrow.

Thank you for taking the trouble to respond. Gillian
 
When do we get to see the results Gilly B? By the way best addition to a jessops light set I know of is BIG umbrellas. Makes em look huge, and soft and warm, whatever you want - relatively cheap but real results.
 
Sharkey said:
When do we get to see the results Gilly B? By the way best addition to a jessops light set I know of is BIG umbrellas. Makes em look huge, and soft and warm, whatever you want - relatively cheap but real results.
Click to expand...

That's interesting:thinking: Do you mean shoot through or reflective?
 
Oh and I will post some piccies later
 
Thank you for taking the trouble to respond
Click to expand...

Any time, the only trouble is in trying to get the mush in my head to make any sense in type. ;)
 
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