Temperamental Triggers

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Stooly

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Stella
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I bought some studio flashes 2nd hand last year which have been working great. He gave me 2 triggers along with it, one which is wireless and a wired one. Both work, but they take ages to set up. So they just don't respond first time, it takes me turning everything off, and turning each thing back on one at a time in different orders, maybe up to 10 times, before it finally starts to work.

Twice during two different shoots, have they actually stopped working mid-shoot. One of those times I managed to get it going again but the other time I couldn't.

Is this just something that happens with cheap triggers? I thought I'd get my head around triggers first and decide what to do going forward. I'm happy to pay for more expensive ones, assuming they will work better. Are all triggers just temperamental sometimes? I've heard someone say that once before, but wasn't sure if that's actually the case or not.
 
The way I use triggers isn't typical so take this advisedly but I've found even reasonable quality triggers can be temperamental. I tend to be using them in damp locations so that has an effect but often they seem to end up in some "mode" where they stop communicating and they are hard to reset when one is feeling a bit pressured with people waiting for you to take the shot.

It might help others to give you advice if you told us the brand?
 
As above, it’d be good to know the makes and models.

But in my experience: whilst TTL was tricky to set up with my early Pocketwizards, no other triggers I’ve used have been in the slightest temperamental or difficult to use.

They all need an understanding of the technology (same as any other niche area of photography). But once you ‘get it’ it’s a simple process.
 
Thank you all for you responses!

I have 2 Interfit ex150 flashes, a Kenro infrared flash transmitter (it doesn't have a model number but I did a reverse image search of it and found the exact same one except it was an Interfit one, but also no model number available) and a pixel TF-322 which I believe is a flash hot shoe sync adapter.
 
Phil V said:
They all need an understanding of the technology (same as any other niche area of photography). But once you ‘get it’ it’s a simple process.
Click to expand...
Each time I think I've 'gotten it' it goes off-script again :D So initially I had a working arrangement with it, whereby I would make sure to switch everything on in sequence and this was working fine, for like 6 or so different shoots and then suddenly it stopped working properly mid-shoots.
 
Stooly said:
Thank you all for you responses!

I have 2 Interfit ex150 flashes, a Kenro infrared flash transmitter (it doesn't have a model number but I did a reverse image search of it and found the exact same one except it was an Interfit one, but also no model number available) and a pixel TF-322 which I believe is a flash hot shoe sync adapter.
Click to expand...
Ahh . . .
Infrared transmitters are very basic and were superseded about 20 years ago. They can only work when they have line of sight, which often doesn't happen. They also have a much shorter range than radio triggers, and can fail in bright lighting conditions. They can be even more unreliable if the batteries aren't at their best.

Your best bet is to replace them with any actual radio trigger.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Ahh . . .
Infrared transmitters are very basic and were superseded about 20 years ago. They can only work when they have line of sight, which often doesn't happen. They also have a much shorter range than radio triggers, and can fail in bright lighting conditions. They can be even more unreliable if the batteries aren't at their best.

Your best bet is to replace them with any actual radio trigger.
Click to expand...

Agree with Garry - those triggers are junk tbh

These are bulletrpoof (receivers are mains powered)
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Stooly said:
Each time I think I've 'gotten it' it goes off-script again :D So initially I had a working arrangement with it, whereby I would make sure to switch everything on in sequence and this was working fine, for like 6 or so different shoots and then suddenly it stopped working properly mid-shoots.
Click to expand...
That used to happen with the PW’s.
I have to say there’s no such issue using Godox.
 
Thank you so much guys! I'll get some new ones, now I know what I'm looking for.
 
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