wireless shooting with studio lights

[Rere15]

Hi everyone,
Can somebody tell me what to set my camera on to shoot my monolights in the slave mode?
I tried to use my D70 with monolights by putting an on-camera flash onto the Wein safe sync hot shoe adapter. I put both monolights on slave and had my white balance set to flash with the shutter at 60th of a second. Even though the monolights flashed, in the slave mode without the pc sync cord attached, the monolights were out of sync with the camera and on-camera flash. Consequently, only the on-camera flash registered on the photos. Would setting my white balance on Auto or something else permit me to use the monolights wireless in the slave mode?
Thanks bunches for any help.
Rere

[MJS]

I'm a little confused. Do you want the on camera flash for anything other than to trip the two mono-lights. If you don't need it, use a sync cord to the nearest monolight, the other should be set to slave. Put your camera on manual and use a flash meter to read the exposure. TTL or auto just doesn't work when you are using mono-lights. The highest shutter speed you can use with the D70 is 1/500 of a second. I have been using the pre-set for the white balance where you custom white balance to the lighting conditions and have gotten great results. Which strobes did you end up getting?

[JCPhoto1]

As far as the white balance with strobes always set it to flash. That's what your using. Auto would give you a reading for the ambient light in the room before the shot and wouldn't have any way of reading the strobes. There are a number of ways to trigger the strobes. One is to put the speedlight on camera point it up at the ceiling. Rubber band a piece of cardboard to the front of the light so you don't have any spill going forward. The light from the speedlight will spill a bit but it will fire the strobes. You can use a variation of the same method but go to a camera shop and get a piece of infra red filter. Cut a piece and cover the front of the speedlight with it. This method reduces any contaminating light but still fires your strobes because they fire with IR light.

Your camera has a flash sync speed of 1/500. There is no reason to shoot at 1/60. I would use 1/250 or higher. The strobes fire in the range of 1000th's of a second (mine fire at 1/3600th). For you using the higher ranges of the sync speed assures your not getting any blur from subject movement.

About triggering the strobes I'm not sure exactly what you have. If you use your speedlight like I described above you don't need the Wein. If you do use the Wein I'm not sure if it has the PC connector but if it does just connect it to one strobe with the sync cord and it will fire the other strobe remotely.

I'm not sure if I understood the problem you were having but I hope this helps. If not post another question if we need to explain it better.

[Rere15]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for answering. Sorry I wasn't too clear.
I've been using the Wein sycn on the hotshoe with the pc cord connected to one monolight and slaving the other one. What I would like to do is not have to use the pc cord at all. I tried it without the Wein-just put the SB800 on the camera and tried to slave both monolights. When I did that the monolights fired, but didn't register on the photo. I only got the light from the on-camera flash. So I knew something wasn't set correctly. When I use the pc cord without the on-camera flash (or with it) everything works fine. I would like to not have to use the one pc cord.
I was under the impression that with the D70 set to flash, that I had to use only the 60 (or lower) shutter speed. From what you guys are saying, I can use other shutter speeds,.
Ended up buying the Excalibur-6400 monolight kit. It has the two 640 wat monos, 2 umbrellas and light stands. I guess it's okay, except for the color casts--If I had it to do over, I would buy a different brand with more wattage.
Thanks for all the help
Rere

[MJS]

If you want to use the bulky sb800 for a slave trigger, set it on manual and put it on the lowest power setting possible. Point the head straight up and rubber band a piece of black construction paper as a kind of backwards bounce card so the flash has no effect on the exposure. Make your manual exposure for the monolights. You could always look for a wireless radio trgger set, put the transmitter on the camera, receiver on one light and set the other to slave. They also have infrared transmitters that work on the hot shoe, but Nikon warns against their use.

Good Luck

[EmbeddedMatt]

I'm wondering if you are a victim of pre-flash. Maybe you had already considered that, or maybe your camera doesn't pre-flash, but that was the first thing I thought of when I read your question.

If your external speed light fires a preflash in coordination with the camera then your strobes will fire too early and you will get only the speed light flash in your photo as you observed.

I know some cameras fire a pre-flash even in cases where you wouldn't think they would need one such as when you are using manual exposure and white balance. Maybe you should try a dumber external flash to fire the strobes.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention that in case you hadn't considered pre-flash as the cause of your problem.

[Rere15]

Hi again,
I think you may be right about the pre flash causing the monolights to flash too early. My cameras(D100 and D70) default to a TTl that preflashes, which would cause the monolights in the slave mode to fire early. Haven't yet changed the custom setting (that might be another headache as I also shoot in A priority at times), but will test it soon.
Rere

[MJS]

If you are shooting with studio strobes, you should always make use of flash meter and shoot in Manual. If you get good exposures in A/S or P you have incredibly good luck.

[Rere15]

Hi,
Just for the record, when shooting with my studio strobes I always shoot with the manual mode on my camera. When I'm shooting action at martial arts events, I use one of my SB800 speedlights with a bracket on the camera, and then is when I shoot with the Aperture prioriety-I usually get good action shots (board breaking, flying jump-kicks, etc.) and no color cast.
Anyway, when I'm shooting with the studio strobes, I have my camera in the manual mode (always), but the flash also has a mode that defaults to TTL and preflashes, I wasn't aware of this. The preflashes set off my studio strobes (which are set to the slave mode) too early and the lighting is not registered on the picture. I have to go into custom settings on my camera to keep the flash from defaulting to the TTL mode and keep the flash (not the camera, which is already in the manual mode) in the manual mode. Then, when I need to shoot with the Nikon on-camera SB800, I'll have to put the flash mode back into the TTL..It's confusing, to explain, but thanks to all the members here, it's coming into focus for me.
Rere