Getting A Good Signal - Flash Triggers For Right Now

I'm proud to say that I was using a radio-link flash trigger in my studio 20 years ago. Prior to that I was using a black cable strung between the Elinchrom lights and the camera stand - I was using it to clothesline myself in the dark.

I never managed to pull over an entire light or camera stand with this but I did manage to wrench a PC socket loose from a DSLR. There was language...

The radio link I purchased to prevent this sort of thing happening is fairly big and crude. It takes two different sets of batteries and is large enough to obscure the shutter speed dial of my mirror-less camera when plugged onto the hot shoe. Last Sunday it served me notice that the time had come to think of a new one. The sequence of events was interesting - see if this sort of thing happens to you - you might be in the same boat as I.

Shooting away... after about 15 minutes, the shutter fired but the flash didn't. The open flash button on the radio sender lit up but nothing else happened. Then it would come good for a couple of shots.

Then one shot came along had a perfectly exposed top with a dark black bottom, and the following shot had even more dark further up the frame. Finally one frame was entirely black, even though the flash had fired...

At this point of time I had to wonder if the camera synch had packed up. I wound back the shutter speed to 1/4 second, fired, and got good exposure. Advancing up the shutter speeds toward the nominal top synch speed of 1/180 sec was fine until I got to 1/180 - the blackness crept back... to a different extent.

Out with the hot-shoe block and the dreaded old wire synch cord. Everything synched perfectly from 1 sec on up to 1/180 sec as per normal. The conclusion I drew is that the twenty-year old radio trigger set is developing intermittent flaws in both timing and contact. It is time to look at a Pocketwizard, Promaster, Hahnel, or Elinchrom radio trigger set. They work pretty well, and are a darn sight smaller than the current devices.

I don't think I could face the PC cord again. Not with my face...