PT04 Radio Triggers?

[quiksilver_ice]

PT04 Radio Triggers? or Big Trouble with Little Chinese Remotes.

I should have know better, everyone says these are unreliable, but that's just about getting the things to fire maybe 7 out of ten times. That I could live with! Fine! At least that is getting the things to fire 70% of the time.

What I don't understand is everything seems to communicate, the triggers lights up red and I can even get the remote flash to fire, when I press the TEST button - which is cool! The big trouble is that the Canon 450D is not aware that there is a transmitter attached to the hotshoe! When I check the menu for flash all I get is a message saying "This menu cannot be displayed. Incompatible flash, or flash's power is turned off."

Can someone please tell me if it's a problem in the 450D as I get the same menu error for anything on the hot shoe with only a single centre contact. I tired the tiny cheapo, cheapo Zeikos, same thing only when you click the shutter the little flash fires (the EXIF states flash did not fire). I tried the Bower Ring flash, which seemed to work fine when I first got it a few months back, but now, sometimes it fires, the at other times nada, zip, zilch, zero. Now that appears to me to be a bad contact! Someone please advise me, give me a clue, or am I just being completely STOOPID! Doh!

Besides the 580EX II Speedlite I have
Sigma EF-500 DG ST Flash – (Canon Fit)
Cobra 700AF Flashgun and Bracket – (Canon Fit)
Zeikos DigitalPro Slave Flash with built in sensor trigger
Plus a mucho cheapo DIY honeycomb grid made from black drinking straws and card!

I may get to play with these toys if I can ever get the Radio trigger to function!

[Lithian]

Not sure about the 450D but i think it should trip the hotshoe anyway, even if it can't talk to whatever is there (anything not ettl) I understand that the flash menu is for controlling settings for the 430/580 ex flashes, if you dont have one of these in the hotshoe then there is nothing to control and the menu has no purpose.

What i do know is pt-04 triggers are s__t!

When the Zeikos are firing from the hotshoe this shows that the hotshoe works.
However you may find some things are a little loose, with the pt-04 trigger i purposely do not screw the collar down and the trigger works, if i tighten it it gets iffy. Maybe this is why the Bower is having issues?

Another thing is i've found them to introduce serious lag with some flashes. I need to drop to 1/30th to get all my flashes to sync when using the pt-04 triggers. So if you are seeing the flash itself fire, but not show up in the picture then just walk the shutter speed down.

[Jim M]

Not sure about the 450D but i think it should trip the hotshoe anyway, even if it can't talk to whatever is there (anything not ettl) I understand that the flash menu is for controlling settings for the 430/580 ex flashes, if you dont have one of these in the hotshoe then there is nothing to control and the menu has no purpose.

What i do know is pt-04 triggers are s__t!

When the Zeikos are firing from the hotshoe this shows that the hotshoe works.
However you may find some things are a little loose, with the pt-04 trigger i purposely do not screw the collar down and the trigger works, if i tighten it it gets iffy. Maybe this is why the Bower is having issues?

Another thing is i've found them to introduce serious lag with some flashes. I need to drop to 1/30th to get all my flashes to sync when using the pt-04 triggers. So if you are seeing the flash itself fire, but not show up in the picture then just walk the shutter speed down.
I've heard the bit about the center contact of the remote not touching the camera's hot shoe contact before. I've had the experience due to user error when I didn't get the transmitter slid all the way into the hot shoe. Luckily my eBay trigger makes good contact if I've put it on all the way.

I don't have pt-04s exactly, but my experience with other cheap eBay radio triggers (I use mine regularly) is that when the batteries get low, the response time drops. I use mine at 1/160 most of the time, but I really haven't had any trouble all the way up to sync speed. When I first experienced the battery thing, I was down to 1/15 before the night was over and I was a long way from fresh batteries. If I don't take the batteries out of my receiver between uses, the batteries run down quickly. If I do take them out, they last a good long time. I used my eBay cheapos last night for about 100 frames outdoors at a drag strip with zero failures. I must have gotten the set made on Wednesday.

I should probably add that I use them exclusively for studio strobes and not Speedlights. (Yes, I drag a pack and head flash to the track!)

[quiksilver_ice]

Hi to both Lithian and Jim M,

Thanks for the input, and basically to bring you all up to speed - this much I do know!

I realise that these ebay triggers can be a bit flakey (sometimes), but I needed a "poverty wizard" way into this strobist thing and this was the cheapest route.

First off, I took the stuff out of the box and I loaded the 3 receivers with fresh AAA batteries. The transmitter battery is fitted at the factory in China, and I have read various comments on the web that these should be changed as they are not full charged and are only for testing. Anyhow testing is what I was all about - so that should be O.K. Now, I set them all to the same channel, turn the power on and standing across the room from the receivers press the test button on the command module. Ta da! All the LEDs light up red. We have ingnition - Roger that, Cap Com!

Only when the master was in the hot shoe of the 450D did I have any problems.

I have been leaving "help me" notes all over the place, but deep within the Strobist .com stuff on Flickr I found the same question being asked about strange problems with the 450D hot shoe. Some folks say tighten that thumbwheel all the way, others say loosen that sucker and give everything a good wiggle (we all need that sometimes). Well I had started out on the tightening route, so a slack wiggle it was. Whaddya know - check back in the menu of the camera and the message now states that the internal flash cannot be used because an external device is being used (i.e. the trigger). This menu change is not alway immediate, and more wiggling and jiggling seemed to be required on more than one occasion. I managed to do a little test by lining up the receivers (no flash guns attached) and taking a shot of them - surenuff all those red LEDs were lit. So then I slotted the tiny Zeikos on top of one of the receivers, fire the camera shutter and Blam! Fiat lux! Let there be light! We are up and running, time to try one of the big boys on there. Load up the Sigma - nuthin - aaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggg!

It's a this point that I realised my stash of high power AA batteries has been plundered by my partner to power her personal CD player and listen to talking books while working in the garden. So while everything now seems to be functioning in the trigger department, I still need a truck load of power cells and massive charger. Oh yeah! I still need to check out the wiggle factor with the ring flash - if it don't work expect more questions!

BTW: The camera menu for the external flash is still going to show no communication because we are not on TTL - we are fully manual.

Thanks for taking the time!

[OWSIU]

I've read certain models of sigma flashes won't work with ebay triggers (probably the more expensive ones too), something about the pins on the flash foot.

[mufutau55]

Only the Sigma EF-500 DG ST or EF-530 DG ST will not work because they are not built
for wireless setup, unless you modify them, a guy here modify them to work.

But all the EF-500 DG SUPER and EF-530 DG SUPER will work. I have tested this
with my original PT-04, Cactus v2s, and CTR-301P and they worked successfully.

Mufutau

I've read certain models of sigma flashes won't work with ebay triggers (probably the more expensive ones too), something about the pins on the flash foot.