Thank you for all of the information. The only reason I'm surprised and confused is because I USED to be able to this with no problems (Fire the internal flash as a trigger for the external, off-camera strobes - and not have th internal appear in the picture) I have shot literally 2 to 3 thousand photos this way so far.

Something has suddenly changed though and I can't figure out what. I've already spent a grand on all of this lighting so far, I don't really have the cash to buy radio triggers now. Though I'm pretty sure I'll have to eventually, because all of this optical syncing is such a pain in the ass. (This isn't the first problem I've had while learning flash photography with these lights)

I've done this a thousand times, but now something's changed and I can't make it work. I normally use my onboard flash as the controller for my strobes(It's all 100% optical, no radio). It's supposed to fire, trigger all the slave flashes and not show up in the photo. But something's not working....




Any ideas guys?

So I'm in the middle of shooting (just practice, there's no model here today, thankfully!) When suddenly, my flashgun stops firing in optical wireless mode. It's been working fine all night up until now. I didn't change a thing, didn't touch it while it sat up on its tripod - it just stopped responding.

I then put fresh batteries in, I checked that I was still on channel 1 on both camera and flash, I have everything in full manual, gun on wireless slave mode. I moved it right up to my camera to factor out lost line-of-sight. I even mounted it on my camera again and it does still fire just fine, so the bulb's not toast.

Can anyone think of anything I might have forgotten to check?

Ok... it's working on channel 1 again. Is that what it needed? To rest? Any other people here who use flash familiar with this quirk?

I've become very serious about this photography stuff, and so my friends have taken note and are volunteering themselves to be the victims of my lens! It's great!


After this, I've got another friend to shoot, then a pregnant friend(Should be a neat challenge!). Then, I'm going to have my first paying clientele! (I have no idea what to charge - eek!) After that, who knows! My family's insisting that I shoot weddings and such. Maybe.

Here is Model #1, the spunky Lisa Z.

Full gallery:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30787&l=fb941&id=542364198

And here are some samples:




Model #2 is the beautiful Heather M.

This is her full gallery:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30797&l=006a4&id=542364198

And here is a sample:




What do you guys think? I think I'm learning faster than I had thought I could! I can't wait to see where this hobby of mine takes me.

Aww geez. Of course! How did I miss that? There is indeed alot of light bouncing around in those shots. I guess I need to pay attention to where it's bouncing from before it hits my subject. That's gonna be hard in this tiny loft!

Thank you very very much for pointing that out. Man oh man.

Daniel: Hey, thank you for enlightening me on the concept of cross-processing. I had to google it, but now I understand it and I have another tool in my arsenal! Sweet! Bring on the models!

Thanks Hefty, and thank you Matt! Manual everything, eh? I was starting to suspect that's what I needed, but now it seems certain. WB was a joke too - in those green shots, that's a white bedsheet behind me. It turned out to be a more interesting colour than plain white, so I kept it for these shots, but I'm still not going to have that for any future shots.

Thank you. And I'll tell the model you were fond of him. "Excuse me, Mr model Sir? You're a really good model", "Why, thank you, myself", "Anytime, buddy, hey you wanna go get a beer?". You get it?
Born and raised. I just recently moved out here to Alberta, but I'm not having any trouble getting models, it seems! I've got two visitors before this week is out! It's going to be busy!

Alright, I got some usable results. I cannot afford any more gear. Radio triggers would be ideal, I know, but I can't do that yet. I'm not using the onboard flash, just the bounced light from my External flashgun. I set it to manual and it triggers the strobes nicely.

Here are some shots. They turned out nicely, yes, but I'm kind of lucky. I've never done any lighting for photography prior to this. Not Ever. Not once, not even flash. So naturally, crits are very welcome!

Click here for a look at the whole story.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29754&l=954b8&id=542364198

Or just take a look at a few samples here:



What do you all think? What did I do wrong/right?

Hehe, I've already dropped a grand on the lighting. I have to ease up and make do with what I have so far.

I think I got it. I have to set my external flash to Manual. I can't set the internal flash on this K10, I think, but that's ok. I paid $400 for this flash and I'm glad it's ended up being useful for this too now.

Hey all. I just bought the Opus M1002 lighting kit. I've got the m100SR strobes set up and working as slaves, but there's something strange going on. I press my shutter, my camera's onboard flash goes off (It's a K10D), and the strobes fire. I can clearly see it all happening properly. BUT no light from my strobes is getting into the photograph (only that tiny bit of my camera's onbard light). The strobe's timing is off, obviously.

Through playing around, I found out how to make it work. I set my shutter to trip after a 2-second delay. This causes my camera to emit a preflash, and this somehow makes the strobes fire on time and show up nicely in the photos. It doesn't work with the 12-second delay or no-delay, only 2-second.

Is this normal? Is this how I have to do it?

(This kit came with zero instructions, which I think is a terrible, inexcusable thing)