Canon 7D and Jessops 360AFD Flash

[Russ77]

I happy with the way the flash works fixed to the camera, however when I try and use the it off camera (utilising the 7Ds wireless trigger functionality) it doesn't always work......

Camera set in P with pop-up flash up and successful test fire (external flash only firing), flash to slave, the external flash fires but isn't always captured in shot. Sometimes it does and it's completely over-powered. Tried it in other modes with different shutter speeds and it's very hit and miss.

I'm thinking either I'm missing something in the set up OR the flash isn't particularly compatible with the trigger?

Cheers

Russ

 

[Russ77]

No replies but in case anyone else has had this problem I think I solved it myself.......

Follow the camera instructions for setting up wireless flash but only for an external flash to fire.

In C.FnIII set AF-Assist Beam Firing to 2 or 3 as enabling it makes the external flash fire when the camera flash emits it's pre-flash and doesn't recycle in time.

It is a little temperamental but I've found it will then fire the Jessops flash remotely in P (others do work with varying success rates) with the camera exposure adjustment greater than 0 and the flash power has to be set to 1/2 or less.

Bit of a faff but it can be made to work.

Can't think of any technical reason why the flash gun won't work on full power, well I say wont work, it fires but the light it emits doesn't come into shot. Answers on a postcard?

 

[Flash In The Pan]

Sounds like your onboard flash is sending out a ttl pre-flash which is triggering the 360AFD before the main flash.

 

[EOS_JD]

Are you shooting with TTL? In TTL mode the preflash will fire possibly setting the other flash off too early. Switch to manual and the preflash will not fire (I mean Manual Flash)

 

[Hemp Knight]

The Jessops flashgun only has an optical slave function, therefore it won't work with the wireless from the 7D the same way that say a 580EX II does. The Jessops flashgun fires at the first sign of another flash going off, and as said earlier the TTL pre-flash triggers the Jessops so that when the main flash occurs the Jessops has been spent.

I've got a Nissin Di866 and a Pentax fit Jessops 360 and I use can use both of them fine when I set the settings manually and not TTL.

 

[Russ77]

Cheers for the comments, I guessed it was the pre-firing that was causing the problem.

Been looking at the Nissin Di866, think any birthday money coming my way might be going on that

I did think about getting some kind of home studio set up but the amount of times I'd actually use it I think I'm better off with 2 wireless flashes.