Studio Flash triggering

Hi All

I was at the net-model Charity Cardiff Group Shoot recently and I was having no joy in getting any signal based wired/wireless triggering to work. Pentax this morning said update the firmware to v1.30 and apperently this was needed and they cannot give me confirmation that it will be sorted purely by updating. Certainly it seems that Pentax has a lot more compatability issues with studio systems and I am wondering if anyone else is having this exact fault. I don't want to pay out for a studio when I know Pentax cannot garuntee this will work.

Steve,
You don't mention what equipment you were trying to use!

One other poster had a problem with studio flash that turned out to be a polarity issue on the flash system (think they were Interfit or Portaflash flash units).
Most tend to use an InfraRed trigger that mount on top of the camera hot shoe - that eliminates the cables and solves any polarity issues with wired connections.

If you were trying to trigger wirelessly off the pop-up flash - it won't work (not with Pentax, nor Canon nor 99% of DSLR cameras) because it fires a preflash to perform metering before firing the main discharge. This would result in studio units discharging on the preflash (so you see them fire), but you'll see nothing in the resulting image.

(I'd be very surprised if you had issues with Bowens or Elinchrom units... )
To be fair, I strongly suspect this is an issue with the flash equipment you were using... and not the K10D

Matt

apparently, (read thread "Argh!! Expensive day in the studio...." if you throw a 360 fgz at the "Test" button on your studio units.......
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seriously...I have a Nikon hotshoe to pc cord adapter, and it fires my elinchroms just fine.
I can use the 360 fgz in auto or manual to fire the studio units in slave mode just fine.

never felt compelled to try the built in flash unit though....

Hi Matt, I don't know what I was equipment as it was 3/4 and Pentax told me that it was the firmware only needed upgrading. I used IR/Radio remote triggers and also two hotshoe adapaters. I did mention polarity and Pentax said just upgrade your firmware

What settings do you use exactly can I ask? I wonder if canon/nikon need different settings on the studio system.

Don't quite see how you can justify this statement
I know of one issue with "cheap and cheerful" studio flash units. Just because your particular setup didn't work, doesn't mean that there's a general problem, and trying to claim there is, frankly makes my blood boil as it's quite illogical!

Pentax will probably say to upgrade whatever (if you told them what you've told us, then there's absolutely no information in your comment as to what the problem is)

One question though - have you tried your K10D with a regular flash gun? And did it work?

You said you tried "IR/Radio triggers" and "two hotshoe adapters" - was the result identical in all cases? Did you get ANY flash from the studio units? Or were the images wrong??

Need more info
Matt

Well the problem is they were not my setups. I am going to buy one and I will be looking to use a radio trigger system ideally. I am gonna have a budget of £1000 so please an recommendatins will be taken quite happily.

I set my mode dial to "M"
I use manual focus.
none of the other settings or functions should interfere....(i have the aperture ring feature in the custom function menu set to on)
I have elenchrom radio trigger and it works (not terribly reliable on my canons or pentax...)
I have no problems with the ds2.
I have the latest update which I installed immediately upon buying the k10.

I have two group shoots so hopefully in Brghton someone will hopefully bring a portable kit for me to check my gear with. Cheers Don for that data. If it is a firmware problem didn't Pentax think someone would need to use studio gear and add that into the firmware?

I think the message being conveyed her is that, your problem is the exception, not the rule.
try to find out what equipment was being used, tell us more detials about how you set about problem solving the issue.
I'm betting it is either the hotshoe adaptor, or the pc cables or the polarity issue. (polarity issue easy fix....cut the wire and reverse the wires before soldering it back together on one lead and see if it works)...
there are voltage issues with some (esp older) studio units that could damage your slr....wein synchsafe may help.

This is nothing to do with Perntax firmware. If you were as woolly and imprecise in describing the problem to them as you were, and still are, in describing the problem here, then no wonder you got strange advice.

If you want us to help, explain exactly what you were doing and with what equipment. And stop jumping to conclusions. You clearly know nothing about the subject, so you are in no positiopn to pass judgement.

G

Sorry Matt this thread has gone very fast. I spoke to Pentax techies and their customer services this morning. I had the result where the 360 flash gun I got works with the hotshoe adapters and only when they are not connected to the studio setup. I use a flash gun quite alot so I know it is not a hardware failure.

I sadly work as a cust serv bod and techie for a mobile company so felt very cheesed off to be told to do something I already knew that I could do. I have to be seen to promote my network only no matter what my mind tells me so I kinda expected that this morning too. 25 minutes of my life where nothing could get done and progress.

Not sure if this is the same problem but a few weeks back I went to a studio flash workshop where there were several light setups.

The setup using a radio trigger worked fine with my K10 but there was another setup using sync cable or IR trigger. Unfortunately having only had the camera a couple of days I had not noticed it had no sync socket so I didnt have an adapter so had to rely on a borrow IR hot shoe transmitter. This was very unreliable. The test button worked fine but you could see from the activity light that many times the transmitter did not fire when the shutter did. Mine was the only one with this problem and nobody could work out why.

I have since bought myself a cheap radio trigger and has been OK so far.

P.S. I was using 1.0 firmware at the time and pop up flash did not work due to the preflash as mentioned above.

EDIt: It was a cheap unbranded trigger not a Bowens or Elinchrome one (The flashes we were using)

Well I do apologise, a techie in Pentax said they had a new firmware update as it wouldn't trigger flash before the latest firmware. It wasn't my systems so I sadly don't hold this information and I would have to contact Martyn Pinches regarding who's systems these were for more information.

I think that refers to wireless control of a 360/540 with the pop-up not a studio flash?