Why won’t my Sony RX10 reliably trigger old studio flashes with optical slaves?
Asked 8/23/2015
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2 answers
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I’m trying to use a Sony RX10 to trigger older Portaflash 336 VM studio heads that have built-in optical slaves. When I use the camera’s built-in flash, the studio lights do fire, but the photo is still very dark and mostly shows ambient light. I’ve tried manual exposure settings, reducing the built-in flash output, setting white balance to flash, and using meter readings, but the result is the same. Is the RX10’s built-in flash incompatible with optical slaves, and would a radio trigger or hot-shoe flash solve it?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
1
Your built-in flash has no manual mode. The TTL pre-flash is causing the optical slaves to fire at the wrong time. The easiest solution is to use a simple manual flash in the hotshoe of the RX10.
Originally by user39427. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user39427
10y ago
0
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Yes. The problem is the RX10’s built-in flash uses TTL metering, which sends a pre-flash before the actual exposure. Your Portaflash optical slaves are seeing that pre-flash and firing too early, so by the time the shutter is open for the real exposure, the studio heads have already discharged. That’s why the image ends up dark and mostly ambient-lit.
The built-in flash on the RX10 does not offer a true manual flash mode to avoid the pre-flash. The usual fix is to trigger the studio lights with something that does not pre-flash:
- a simple external flash in the RX10 hot shoe that can be set to manual, or
- a radio trigger connected via the hot shoe.
A radio trigger should work well, provided you have the correct sync cable/adapter for the Portaflash heads’ sync input. In short: you’re not doing exposure wrong; the issue is the TTL pre-flash triggering the optical slaves at the wrong time.
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