580ex to trigger 430ex and Elinchrom 400BX

Hi all ...
I have a canon 30D with a 580ex, 430ex & 2x Elinchrom 400BX monos. Here is the problem i am experiencing. I have read some of the post that says i can use the 580ex to trigger the 430 and the Monos. So i set the 580ex on the 30D hot shoe, then i set if to <M>anual and cranck down the intensity to 1/128 ( as many suggest ) I then set both Monos as slaves (looks for flash). I click the pilot on the 580ex and ALL the lights trigger. YES - they all light up. I take a shot and see the lights but i get a black pic ( not enough lights )

Can anyone suggest what i can do? Ideally i would like to plug in my sync cord to the Monos and using the 580ex as a trigger only, and place the 430ex as background light. I cant get that work either ...

Any help would be greatly appreciated !
Thx in advance
Robert

my guess would be the preflash on the 580 is triggering the strobes too early.

If you are going to be using the 580EX as the master to trigger the 430EX, you're not going to much luck trying to trigger the monolights at the proper moment. The 580EX fires a preflash which will set off the monolights prematurely. And, on top of that, the 430EX won't fire either because the prematurely firing monolights will drown out the command flash from the 580EX to the 430EX.

If you can wire both monolights to the sync terminal, you should be able to get your setup to work.

i try with using a sync cord for one 400BX Mono and set the other as slave, that does not seem to work. If the mono fire the 430ex does not. Can the preflash be disabled ?!

There are few ways to disable the master 580EX's preflash: For the on-camera master, tape or shim the 4 small contacts on the camera's hot shoe. For off camera master, use a sync cord + hot shoe adapter, or use a radio trigger like PW/Ebay trigger.

Beware that once the 580EX is taken out of the ETTL loop, the max sync speed is limited to 1/125.

Lotto wrote in post #3126863
There are few ways to disable the master 580EX's preflash: For the on-camera master, tape or shim the 4 small contacts on the camera's hot shoe. For off camera master, use a sync cord + hot shoe adapter, or use a radio trigger like PW/Ebay trigger.

Beware that once the 580EX is taken out of the ETTL loop, the max sync speed is limited to 1/125.

Chances are that the 430EX still won't fire because the monolights are going to drown the command signal for the 430EX to fire. The only way around this is to either set things up so that the monos fire via the 430EX and not the master or delay the triggering, via a PW Multimax, of the 580EX/430EX or the monolight combos so that the two sets don't fire exactly at the same time.

If you really want to use these four units together...

How about
580EX on hotshoe, manual mode
430EX connected to PC cord and hotshoe adapter, manual mode
Elinchromes firing with their own optical slaves.

You can interchange the 430EX and 580EX in this setup if desired.
This seems like the simplest and cheapest method with what you have.

Alternatively, forget about using the 430EX off-camera and buy a cheap hotshoe flash and slave adapter for it.

Thanks all,
i will try some of the suggestions, i did notice that after covering the 4 pins on the 580ex and firing only 430ex that on 1/2 of the light was captured. I guess i am attributing to the fact that i was on M shooting 200 at 6.3f

I will experiment more - thanks for all your advice !
Robert

robertxc wrote in post #3127915
Thanks all,
i will try some of the suggestions, i did notice that after covering the 4 pins on the 580ex and firing only 430ex that on 1/2 of the light was captured. I guess i am attributing to the fact that i was on M shooting 200 at 6.3f

I will experiment more - thanks for all your advice !
Robert

If you mean that half the frame was dark and the other half was lit OK, then that's because the max sync speed you'll be able to use drops down to 1/125 or 1/100 in that setup.