Flash Trigger Question

[Barryboy]

Hi... This is a newby question so please bear with me. I am a keen street photographer and I am to starting take an interest in more traditional portraiture. I have a little studio experience but only using a system that had already been set up for us. I would like to give it a go myself with some modest equipment before splashing out on expensive studio flash heads. I have some elderly but perfectly serviceable flashguns (Vivitar 283 'Light Machine' and Soligor 42AS) which were well regarded units in their day. Now I know better than to attach either of these to my D610 so I was considering getting a budget radio transmitter/receiver and two stands and softboxes. My question is: Would the receivers be compatible with these elderly flashguns (which probably have high voltages)?

As always many thanks for any replies.
Rob

 

[MatBin]

another option is to have a small hotshoe gun act as a master and have optical triggers on the other guns. The 283 was a real piece of kit wasnt it?

 

[swanseamale47]

The 283 is listed as having a varity of voltages depending on when and where made, early versions tested at as high as 600v, some made in Korea tested at 8v but others came out around the 200v mark. As theres such a wide range I would suggest you contact the trigger company and ask if those sort of voltages are safe with their triggers.
600v could easily fry something.

 

[MatBin]

They (high voltage trigger guns) worked perfectly fine with optical triggers back in the day, no-one worried about trigger voltage then
I'm assuming you can still get them of course, just checked, e-bay or Amazon still stock them at very reasonable prices.
Probably not as good as wireless, especially outdoors but ok indoors.

 

[PhilH04]

Indoors - another vote for cheap optical triggers, all you need them to do is fire the flash in synch... Probably no need for a hot-shoe flash as I believe the D610 has a built in unit.

As for modifiers, I would plump for Umbrellas rather than softboxes, I understand that umbrellas will be more efficient with fresnel heads.

 

[MatBin]

Indoors - another vote for cheap optical triggers, all you need them to do is fire the flash in synch... Probably no need for a hot-shoe flash as I believe the D610 has a built in unit.

As for modifiers, I would plump for Umbrellas rather than softboxes, I understand that umbrellas will be more efficient with fresnel heads.

That's the trouble with having a 5D3, no built-in flash

 

[Barryboy]

Many thanks all. I had considered optical receivers but thought that the direct flash from the built in flash unit would affect/spoil the lighting effect I was trying for. Or is that my (freely admitted) einexperience showing here?

Rob

 

[MatBin]

One of the advantages of a modern hot shoe gun, so as to not fry the contacts, would be the ability to direct the flash away from the subject e.g. bounce or through an umbrella or an off shoe cord etc, alternatively you may be able to reduce the output from the onboard gun either through menus in your camera or via a couple of layers of tissue over the lens of the unit fastened by sellotape. You would need to experiment between how much to ensure enough light so the other guns fired and how much to ensure it didn't spoil the look you were after.

 

[Barryboy]

Thanks, Matbin. The whole idea is to get away from direct flash so I think I'll bin the optical trigger idea and maybe take a look at direct lighting - possibly using LED? Any comments welcomed.

Rob

 

[Phil V]

Many thanks all. I had considered optical receivers but thought that the direct flash from the built in flash unit would affect/spoil the lighting effect I was trying for. Or is that my (freely admitted) einexperience showing here?

Rob

There are ways of managing this, by using a film over the pop up, or deflecting it, but frankly it’s more bother than its worth.
Personally I’d cut my losses and sell the old flashguns (which do have a cult following so will bring in some money)

Thanks, Matbin. The whole idea is to get away from direct flash so I think I'll bin the optical trigger idea and maybe take a look at direct lighting - possibly using LED? Any comments welcomed.

Rob

If you’re shooting oeople, then affordable LED lighting is a bit behind the curve, flash is still the best way to do this, and if you’re starting from scratch and have mains power available, a decent modern studio head is still the best value way to go (in fact you’ll be able to slave from it too, so don’t sell those old flashguns yet), you should be able to pick up a fully featured head for about £100 if you shop around.

 

[Barryboy]

Thanks, Phil. I am a hobbyist and just want to dip my toe into the water of home portraiture hence my desire to minimise my spending. Unfortunately an unexpected and most unwelcome redundancy has reinforced that! I have been asking around locally and it has been suggested that as a starter I could look at something like this:

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HOT-2-x-135W-Studio-Photography-Continuous-Lighting-Soft-Box-Light-Stand-Kit-SE/122922082178?hash=item1c9eba1f82:g:MdUAAOSwSPBaYaM4

The person who passed this on to me says although the 135W bulb is not very powerful it throws out enough light to use at wider apertures and my D610 seems to give great results at even 800 ASA.. He used his setup mainly for his ebay sales photos but says he used it for portraits of his grandchildren and it was perfectly adequate. What do you think?

Rob

 

[swanseamale47]

They (high voltage trigger guns) worked perfectly fine with optical triggers back in the day, no-one worried about trigger voltage then
I'm assuming you can still get them of course, just checked, e-bay or Amazon still stock them at very reasonable prices.
Probably not as good as wireless, especially outdoors but ok indoors.

Some camera built in flashguns use a preflash, this will trigger the old style optical slaves, the slaves were also famous for being erratic, they needed to be pretty much in poor light to "see" the main flash. Some were better than others but nowhere near as good as the newer style wireless sets.
You can buy a studio lighting kit for under £200 these days, perfectly good for a home set-up, or a modern Chinese flash gun for around £80 new.

 

[chris malcolm]

I still have my old Vivitar 283 which I bought, with all accessories, not long after it first came out. A splendid flashgun which I still use. Way back in those old film days I used it off camera with either a long cable from the camera sync socket, or an optical trigger. Easy enough to turn down the on-camera flash, point it somewhere else, etc., to avoid it affecting the photograph, if that's what you want. Also note that optical triggers not working in sunlight is more of a rumour than a fact. They work by noticing a very sharp increase in light level. I may have been lucky in accidentally buying good ones. I ended up with three, and none of them ever failed to fire in sunlight.

Don't get carried away by taking expensive precautions against high voltages just because you don't know what voltage your flash puts across its trigger terminals. Just measure it with a voltmeter. Swith on the flash, wait for it to charge up, and then measure the voltage across its terminal pins or socket with a voltmeter, starting first with the highest voltage setting of the meter. Mine was well over 100V, maybe 200V, can't remember.

Next check the voltage that your digital camera will accept across its terminals. You'll find that in your camera manual, probably at the back. It's true some weebly digital cameras would only accept 5V, but fortunately all of my digital cameras, starting with a bridge camera in 2006, were properly designed by competent electronic engineers and would quite happily accept the Vivitar voltage, so no problems.

I ended up, back in the old film days, using a cable for the flash nearest the camera, and optical triggers for the others.

 

[MatBin]

Some camera built in flashguns use a preflash, this will trigger the old style optical slaves, the slaves were also famous for being erratic, they needed to be pretty much in poor light to "see" the main flash. Some were better than others but nowhere near as good as the newer style wireless sets.
You can buy a studio lighting kit for under £200 these days, perfectly good for a home set-up, or a modern Chinese flash gun for around £80 new.

I thought the pre-flash though caused the optical trigger to fire the remote flashes but the curtain wouldnt be open so it wouldnt work.

 

[PhilH04]

I thought the pre-flash though caused the optical trigger to fire the remote flashes but the curtain wouldnt be open so it wouldnt work.

If the Nikon is similar to my one Canon with a built in flash, it can be set to manual and the power dialled all the way down to 1/128, the pre-flash is for TTL to determine the exposure, no need for a pre flash when in manual.

 

[HoppyUK]

All credit to you for wanting to have a go and I can understand not wanting to invest too much just to test the water, but both your old flashguns and the budget fluorescent kit have serious limitations. You may get frustrated and give up, or if they do get you interested you'll soon want something better.

Flash guns suffer from a lack of a modelling light so you can't see what the light is doing (very helpful, and will greatly enhance the learning process) and slow recycle time that is, perhaps surprisingly, pretty vital in portraiture. And you'll still need stands and softboxes/umbrellas, in addition to the triggering issues. Fluorescent lights need something around 500W for decent exposure levels or you'll be looking at marginal shutter speeds at low f/numbers and high ISO. And fitting different modifers is either difficult or impossible.

The far better option is studio flash, eg Lencarta Smartflash, with bright modelling light, fast recycle, and plenty of power when you need it. From around £100, and then you're into a proper flash system you can build on and take further.

That aside and given what you now have to hand, you could try optical slave triggering with the pop-up of your Nikon D610 on manual (disables pre-flash). Then get a box of Quality Street and put a couple of the dark red wrappers over the pop-up with a rubber band. That'll make it pretty much invisible but infrared will pass through and optical slaves have good IR sensitivity. My preferred option though would be cheap (manual, non-TTL) radio triggers (eg Yongnuo RF-603 transceivers - £20-ish a pair?). I doubt you'll have triggering voltage issues that seem to be 99% theoretical, the financial risk is very low and a decent set of radio triggers is always handy to have in any case (can be used with any flash gun or studio head, or as remote camera trigger with the right cable).

Let us know how you get on

 

[Barryboy]

All credit to you for wanting to have a go and I can understand not wanting to invest too much just to test the water, but both your old flashguns and the budget fluorescent kit have serious limitations. You may get frustrated and give up, or if they do get you interested you'll soon want something better.

Flash guns suffer from a lack of a modelling light so you can't see what the light is doing (very helpful, and will greatly enhance the learning process) and slow recycle time that is, perhaps surprisingly, pretty vital in portraiture. And you'll still need stands and softboxes/umbrellas, in addition to the triggering issues. Fluorescent lights need something around 500W for decent exposure levels or you'll be looking at marginal shutter speeds at low f/numbers and high ISO. And fitting different modifers is either difficult or impossible.

The far better option is studio flash, eg Lencarta Smartflash, with bright modelling light, fast recycle, and plenty of power when you need it. From around £100, and then you're into a proper flash system you can build on and take further.

That aside and given what you now have to hand, you could try optical slave triggering with the pop-up of your Nikon D610 on manual (disables pre-flash). Then get a box of Quality Street and put a couple of the dark red wrappers over the pop-up with a rubber band. That'll make it pretty much invisible but infrared will pass through and optical slaves have good IR sensitivity. My preferred option though would be cheap (manual, non-TTL) radio triggers (eg Yongnuo RF-603 transceivers - £20-ish a pair?). I doubt you'll have triggering voltage issues that seem to be 99% theoretical, the financial risk is very low and a decent set of radio triggers is always handy to have in any case (can be used with any flash gun or studio head, or as remote camera trigger with the right cable).

Let us know how you get on

Many thanks to all who have responded. Money is tight but everything considered I think that a budget studio flash kit is the way to go. I have some !enses that are surplus to requirements so I think that over the next few weeks I will try some outdoor portraiture (hopefully the sun will make an appearance!) while I get some cash together.

Rob

 

[MatBin]

Many thanks to all who have responded. Money is tight but everything considered I think that a budget studio flash kit is the way to go. I have some !enses that are surplus to requirements so I think that over the next few weeks I will try some outdoor portraiture (hopefully the sun will make an appearance!) while I get some cash together.

Rob

Get a reflector.

 

[swanseamale47]

I thought the pre-flash though caused the optical trigger to fire the remote flashes but the curtain wouldnt be open so it wouldnt work.

You are correct.
Thats the problem, I didn't make that clear in my post though. My bad! Dohh!!!

 

[Barryboy]

Already got a white reflector courtesy of an issue of "What Digital Camera" some time ago.... Have also got a silver one, home made by covering an A3 mounting card with creased kitchen foil. There's a nice woodland area not too far away which i thought would give a pleasant enough background.

Just waiting for the sun to shine.......

Rob