Canon D30 with Speedlite 420EX and Britek Strobes

[WilsonIL]

I am trying to use my Canon D30 with some Britek 250 Strobes with no luck. I am very new at using a digital camera with this setup, so I am looking for any advice I can get. I was using the Speedlite 420EX with the flash pointed towards the ceiling to trigger the strobes. Unfortunately most of the pictures were dark. I tried setting it to the M mode and set my own aperture and shutter speed, but the autoexposure bracketing kicked in and overexposed it!! I was using a light meter to obtain the settings needed. This also seemed to be the case when I set the camera in the P mode. However, sometimes the picture would turn out, but not at the correct lighting.

What am I doing wrong!!!

Any and all advice is welcomed!!

TIA,

Wendy

[Anthony8858]

What you're trying to do won't work.

The Canon d30 fires a 1/10,000 sec preflash. It is that preflash that's firing the Briteks.
The 420ex flash does not have a "manual mode" that would allow you to set a "reduced power" to simply trigger the flash without a preflash. ( the 550ex will allow this).

You basically have two options: Either get yourself a $10.00 "cheapo" flash to use as a "trigger", or use the PC cord that came with the Briteks, and attach directly to the camera.
Of course you could take out your credit card and buy a wireless Canon system:-)

[u02bnpx]

I'm having at least modest success using my D30 with Medalight strobes from Photographers Warehouse, but I'm not using a flash to trigger them. I'd strongly urge you simply to make the strobe-to-camera connection with a standard PC cord.
Most of the time one of your lights will be pretty close to the camera, so you shouldn't have any trouble tripping over the cord.
However, I would most definitely recommend that you go to B&H on the 'Net to order something called a Wein safe-sync. (It's quite inexpensive.) One end of the cord goes to the lamp, the other goes into the Wein, and the Wein fits into your hot shoe. This prevents the delicate electrical innards of the D30 from getting fried, because the safe-sync prevents anything greater than 6 volts from getting to the camera.
One important point I had to learn through trial and error--the cord must be really snugly pushed onto the Wein, or nothing will fire. Just press and turn at the same time and carefully connect safe-sync and cord.
Incidentally, when you use manual setting, what speed are you dialing into your flash meter and using on the camera? I use either 1/60 or 1/125.

[BobbyC]

I called britek and was told they put out 3 volts. I've used mine with just the sync cord and had no problems after a year. I'm using HS1500's and HS2000's, the other models may be different, I'd call and find out. With studio strobes you can only use manual mode, the camera cannot work with studio strobes like it does the 420. The sync cord is your best bet using M mode on the camera.

I have yet to have a light meter truly give me the correct metering with my studio lights and i've tried 3 of them. Since going digital this is not a prob because of the instant feedback. Using the LCD along with the histogram I get exposures right on now.

Cheers,
Bobby