Why does my Yongnuo YN-560 III fire off-camera but give a black frame with a Canon 5D Mark II and RF-603 II?
Asked 10/21/2015
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I’m trying to use a Yongnuo YN-560 III off-camera with a Canon 5D Mark II and a Yongnuo RF-603 II trigger. On-camera flash works, but off-camera the frame is black even though the flash appears to fire.
My camera is in Manual exposure mode. I had the RF-603 II mounted in the hot shoe with a shutter cable attached, and the flash was set to RX mode on the same channel.
What setup or camera setting should I check to make sure the flash fires at the correct time and syncs properly?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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Remove the shutter cable. That is for using another RF-603II to remotely trigger the camera's shutter. This seems to be causing your trigger to activate the flash as soon as the camera's shutter button is pressed but before the first shutter curtain is open.
Your camera communicates the order to fire the flash via the main contact on the hot shoe. With a manual only trigger such as the RF-603II you need to be sure your camera's flash mode is set to manual flash. E-TTL mode might cause the pre-flash signal to set off your flash.
Since your flash is set to manual power, the "pre-flash" (whether caused by the shutter cable or an E-TTL setting) would likely be at high enough power to drain the capacitor in the flash enough that there would not be enough energy in the capacitor to fire again so quickly when the "fire" command is sent from the camera once the first curtain has completely opened.
Other things to consider: Be sure the flash and trigger have fresh batteries. Be sure the trigger on the camera is set to "TX" and not "RTX". Be sure the trigger is seated properly on the hot shoe (It's common for some folks to push them on backwards). Be sure the receiver built in to the flash is set to "RX" and not one of the optical slave modes (S1/S2/Sc/Sn). Be sure any silent shooting options your camera may have are disabled, as they will sometimes disable the flash from firing.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
10y ago
0
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The most likely issue is that the RF-603 II is being triggered too early, before the shutter is actually open.
Key fixes:
- Remove the shutter cable. On the RF-603 II, that cable is for remotely firing the camera shutter with another trigger, not for normal flash sync from the camera hot shoe.
- Mount the RF-603 II directly on the camera hot shoe and use matching channels.
- Make sure the camera’s flash setting is manual, not E-TTL. A pre-flash or early trigger can fire the YN-560 III before the exposure starts.
Why this causes a black frame: if the flash fires from the shutter-cable trigger or from a pre-flash signal, the YN-560 III may dump enough energy that it cannot fire again during the actual exposure, so the image records no flash light.
If the flash’s indicator shows it is receiving a signal but not firing, recheck hot-shoe seating, channel matching, and fresh batteries, but the main correction is to use the RF-603 II as a flash trigger only, without the shutter cable attached.
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