Using the phottix stratos II

I have the phottix stratus II wireless receiver and transmitter. I want to fire my flash on camera while at the same time firing a remote strobe. I could do this on my cheap ebay cactus trigger - although with questionable reliability and awful range. So I bought these new triggers. Only I cannot make the flash and the strobe go off at the same time. If I turn the flash off, my strobe will fire. If I turn the flash back on, only my flash will fire. I cannot figure out how to make this happen so any advise is appreciated.

Stefan

Anyone? The only thing that I can think of is a defective transmitter.

Stefan

I am assuming you are talking about the Phottix Strato II Multi with pass through TTL? With the Strato II system make sure the transmitter and the receivers are all set to the same channel and then make sure the transmitter group button is on (red light in the groups button will be illuminated) for the group that you have your receiver set to. Make sure to turn "off" the optical sensor on your strobe being triggered by the Strato II receiver. It sounds to me like your "On" camera flash is in the ETTL mode and its preflash is triggering the strobe before the Strato II transmitter.

Thanks for the advice, but all of this was confirmed. I was on the correct channel/group, I disabled the optical sensor in the strobe, I tried my on camera flash in both manual and auto. I called the store where I purchased from and they are sending me a new set. Hopefully it will work.

Stefan

Stefan A wrote in post #14608680
Thanks for the advice, but all of this was confirmed. I was on the correct channel/group, I disabled the optical sensor in the strobe, I tried my on camera flash in both manual and auto. I called the store where I purchased from and they are sending me a new set. Hopefully it will work.

Stefan

Hopefully your new ones will work out. The "pass through" technology can be a bit troubling sometimes. I have had a couple of issues with a "Pass through" offshoe cord triggering my "On camera'" flash and Radio Popper JRX triggered "Off shoe" Speedlites out of sync. When I turn off my "On camera" Speedlite my RP JRX triggered Speedlites sync just fine but when I turn on my "On camera" Speedlite the RP JRX triggered Speedlites are not in sync. Still haven't figured out where the issue lies with that setup. It sounds a bit like the issues you are having. Goodluck with the new Strato II's and hopefully it was just an issue with one of the units.

New ones didn't work either. I am at a total loss and pretty disappointed. I really wanted to have this for this weekend and it doesn't look like it's going to work. I know people do this all the time and this is pretty frustrating.

Stefan

Did you try using the supplied cables that connect the trigger to the camera using the pc port? It is not an ideal situation, but it might work.

yes, I tried connecting with the pc cord as well as with the hot shoe I even tried using the hot shoe and the pc cord at the same time.

Which flash are you using on camera?

So they will fire with tx connected to the camera PC port if there is no flash on the camera hotshoe?

Somethings not right, the chance of a second faulty set would have to be pretty slim.

I am using the Canon 430ex. Whether I have the transmitter connected directly to the hotshoe or with the pc cord to the camera, it works as long as the 430ex is switched off. As soon as I turn my 430 on, the remote strobe no longer fires and my 430ex does. I spoke to calumet tech support (since I am using their genesis 200 moonlights), and he says that he knows the Calumet branded radio triggers work right. He says that my Phottix must not be wired the same as theirs (even though as far as I can tell Calumet just uses rebranded Phottix). So, I will go to Calumet tomorrow, with my camera and flash, and try theirs.

Stefan

It should work fine with the Phottix brand triggers too. I do vaguely remember someone else reporting the same problem but I don't know how it was resolved.

If the Calumet triggers do work maybe the store you purchased the Strato II from have a few faulty ones. Its fairly rare with Phottix triggers but it can happen.

No dice. Sitting outside of Calumet after trying 2 different trigger sets. Neither worked on the Genesis strobes. I either get my 430 or the Genesis to fire, but not both. We tried putting a new 430 on my camera and we tried a 60d, 7d, and a 5d. Each time, we got the first try to work. After that, one or the other. It does work with another 430. So the solution is to buy more flashes, or find strobes that will do it. Or maybe the top of the line pocket wizards. I'm just not ready to spend that much money on this.

Stefan

The studio I used to work for had problems with getting triggers to work with the new Genesis 400's they purchased. The Calumet brand triggers did not work so they tried Buff CyberSyncs. The AC powered CyberSyncs were hit and miss but the battery powered units worked flawlessly.

I was under the impression that the cyber syncs only worked with alien bee strobes. Well anyway, too late to try that - the shoot is tomorrow. Today purchased 2 pocket wizard III's. They didn't do what I needed either. Same results. I think it's definitely the Calumet strobes that's causing the problems. So I also found a used 580exII and bought that. I can use my 430 in slave mode and maybe get some background light out of that.

Stefan

It sounds like you're saying its only the Calumet strobes in conjuction with your one 430ex that is having the issues? (in which case its the 430ex that is the problem for some reason).