Elinchrom portable lighting

[welly]

I've been using this lighting equipment from college, a pair of Elinchrom Free Lites with a portable battery power affair, I believe an Elinchrom Ranger RX (although don't have with me to confirm!). I can plug both lights in and trigger it with an ebay trigger and it all works fine like that.

Two questions! It appears, unless I'm missing something, that I can't independently set the power level for each light. Has anyone any experience of this kind of set up and have any ideas on how I can do this? What would be the other option? The power cables are reasonably long but not massively so, so moving one light further back kind of works but not to the effect I'd like. I want to try lighting the background and then a light on the model too.

Secondly, I've tried triggering the lighting system with my SB-800, which appears to trigger however it seems like the lighting system fires off just slightly after the SB-800 does and so the shutter has closed before the lighting system has fired off. I suppose a sync cable would be the trick here? Otherwise what other options do I have to trigger my SB-800 and the lighting system? The ebay trigger doesn't seem to fire off the SB-800 if I wanted to use that remotely. Pocket wizards perhaps but I can't afford those!

I think that's about it!

Cheers,

Welly

 

[tiler65]

Try Elinchrom Skyports instead, much cheaper than pocket wizards.

 

[Garry Edwards]

The Elinchrom Ranger is symetrical, which means that the power is equally divided between the number of heads plugged into it.
Moving a light closer or further away is no solution because it changes the quality of the light - this leaves you with 2 solutions.
1. Fit a neutral density gel over one of the lights - they are available in various strengths and can be doubled up if required.
2. Fit an extension cable between the generator and the lead from the head. There will be a power drop of about 1 stop. TFL sell them for an extortionate price but there is a guy on Ebay who sometimes lists them for about £50.

My guess is that your camera is set to fire a pre-flash, which is triggering your studio flash before the shutter actually opens. You need to turn it off. But using a hotshoe flash is a poor way of triggering the flash, a radio trigger is much better. Pocket Wizards are the best option but expensive. The bowens Pulsar is a good alternative but still expensive. The Lencarta Wavesynch is excellent and cheap, but only works with mains powered lights.

 

[welly]

thanks for the suggestions, will look for some gels then!