Elinchrom Skyport..

Peacock,

How recently have you charged your receiver battery?
How old is the transmitter battery?

Curtis N wrote in post #4622584
Peacock,

How recently have you charged your receiver battery?
How old is the transmitter battery?

Hi Curtis
Should hve added that the receiver was fully charged that morning and was used for approx 500 flashes , at a rough guess the transmitter has no more than 4000 flashes on it.
regards
John
edit to add
Thinking about it the transmitter might have double that on it , up to 10,000 flashes.
Also to verify it was the skyports I tried firing the flashes via an onbord 550ex and synch cord and had no issues.

IR and Radio don't mix.

Triggering one PW or EBay Chinese radio in two separate experiments showed that the remote radio flash fired in sync with the camera but the remote IR beam to the second remote [non radio controlled] flash fired later.

Pound to a penny, Skyports won't either.

Work around: Use a very long shutter speed like 2 seconds.

turbodude wrote in post #4261294
Anyone having problems with other canon flashes? like teh 550ex as master using a hotshoe adapter? I read that people are having problems with Canon wireless system mixed with Skyports.

I am planning buying the Trans and 2 Rx set. One for my canon flashes and one for my alienbee.

Will this work? Like trigger one RX to fire my 550ex in master mode and my 430ex in slave?

GerBee wrote in post #4622705
IR and Radio don't mix.

I think that's a bit overgeneralized, but it does require thorough knowledge of both systems to understand what will work and what won't.

Generally speaking, Canon's wireless flash system was not designed to be used in conjunction with RF or optical slave arrangements. But there are exceptions.

Peacock,
I only recently received my Skyports so I can't help much, other than to recommend trying different frequencies or changing the position of the unit and/or antennae somehow.

I hope you get it figured out, and I hope you share the solution with us so we don't experience the same frustration.

Curtis N wrote in post #4623451
Peacock,
I only recently received my Skyports so I can't help much, other than to recommend trying different frequencies or changing the position of the unit and/or antennae somehow.

I hope you get it figured out, and I hope you share the solution with us so we don't experience the same frustration.

Curtis
I do have some long shoots comming up and if the problem reoccurs(I am expecting more problems) I will try different frequencies , I hadnt thought of trying that.
I have been trying a variety of things with regard to unit placement etc as it feels very much like a connection issue to me.
will let you know how it goes.
John

SkipD wrote in post #4600978
Alkaline battery cells provide approximately 1.5 volts each. Three of them in series provide 4.5 volts, and that is significantly more than the 3.7 volts provided by the internal battery in the Skyports.

Judging from the photos, it does not appear that - once you get the receiver case apart - it would be difficult to replace the original battery in the Skyport receivers with another just like it (purchased from Elinchrom, of course).

darn.. i forget it's 3.7v. well, hopefully they do sell the battery separately. I wasn't able to find any contact us type of linky on their flash site, which got me worried whom do i go to to get the battery replaced later on?

Can you lead me to or two exceptions please.

In a simple experiment I did for someone claiming to be syncing a RF-04 [Ebay Chinese trigger] from a camera, setting off two synced flashes, one a 580EX with the PT-O4 [Ebay Chinese receiver] and it setting off a 430EX via IR from master/slave, my result showed the IR trigger flash was late and missed the sync.

He claimed he Knew PWs would do this and wondered about the Skyports, I have PWs and they did the same.

Are we talking the same thing here?

Thanks.

Curtis N wrote in post #4622761
I think that's a bit overgeneralized, but it does require thorough knowledge of both systems to understand what will work and what won't.

Generally speaking, Canon's wireless flash system was not designed to be used in conjunction with RF or optical slave arrangements. But there are exceptions.

GerBee wrote in post #4624202
Can you lead me to or two exceptions please.

In a simple experiment I did for someone claiming to be syncing a RF-04 [Ebay Chinese trigger] from a camera, setting off two synced flashes, one a 580EX with the PT-O4 [Ebay Chinese receiver] and it setting off a 430EX via IR from master/slave, my result showed the IR trigger flash was late and missed the sync.

He claimed he Knew PWs would do this and wondered about the Skyports, I have PWs and they did the same.

Are we talking the same thing here?

Thanks.

Tell us what settings you used on the Master and Slave flashes. If they were in ETTL mode, you are going to get that delayed reaction from the slave. Both have to be set to Manual mode (the slave can be set to ETTL mode but then its power needs to be set via the Master).

GerBee,

As I understand it, if you have a Canon Speedlite in master-manual mode triggered by PC cord or radio system, and another Speedlite in slave mode, your max. sync speed will be 1/125 because the master needs time to fire a command flash to the slave, after which it fires the "real" flash.

And as I understand it, this method is commonly used as a way to fire two off-camera Speedlites without a third Speedlite or ST-E2 on the camera, and without a second radio receiver.

OK that works one way

I had three problems, I did the wrong experiment.

My 580EX II refused to go to manual once Master/Slave was activated, but I could put it in M first then M/S works ~ ergo I arrived at the wrong conclusion that it could only work in ETTL [which it does not]. My 580EX did change into M with M/S already engaged. I guess the 550EX is the same I'll try that another day.

And the sync speed needs to be much slower, 1/30 to get the exposure right 1/125 to get sync, that's with the EBay triggers.

I tried PW and reversed the order simply because I don't have a PC sync connector handy for the 580EX ~ and the known PW / 580EX II M/S port one problem arises, no fire at all now.

So it is easy to arrive at an invalid conclusion when tree flashguns have different properties with two different triggering devices, so the Skyports could be different again.

Thanks.

PacAce wrote in post #4624370
Tell us what settings you used on the Master and Slave flashes. If they were in ETTL mode, you are going to get that delayed reaction from the slave. Both have to be set to Manual mode (the slave can be set to ETTL mode but then its power needs to be set via the Master).

Yup, something like that sure enough. You might see my reply above.

Thanks,

Curtis N wrote in post #4624384
GerBee,

As I understand it, if you have a Canon Speedlite in master-manual mode triggered by PC cord or radio system, and another Speedlite in slave mode, your max. sync speed will be 1/125 because the master needs time to fire a command flash to the slave, after which it fires the "real" flash.

And as I understand it, this method is commonly used as a way to fire two off-camera Speedlites without a third Speedlite or ST-E2 on the camera, and without a second radio receiver.

peacock wrote in post #4622625
Thinking about it the transmitter might have double that on it , up to 10,000 flashes.

I have no idea how many pops the transmitter battery is supposedly good for, but you might try replacing that battery.

I just tested the battery supplied with my transmitter (after only a few hundred pops) and it showed 3.05 volts. A new battery purchased locally showed 3.34 volts. It would appear that the supplied battery was not "new".

GerBee wrote in post #4624923
OK that works one way

I had three problems, I did the wrong experiment.

My 580EX II refused to go to manual once Master/Slave was activated, but I could put it in M first then M/S works ~ ergo I arrived at the wrong conclusion that it could only work in ETTL [which it does not]. My 580EX did change into M with M/S already engaged. I guess the 550EX is the same I'll try that another day.

And the sync speed needs to be much slower, 1/30 to get the exposure right 1/125 to get sync, that's with the EBay triggers.

I tried PW and reversed the order simply because I don't have a PC sync connector handy for the 580EX ~ and the known PW / 580EX II M/S port one problem arises, no fire at all now.

So it is easy to arrive at an invalid conclusion when tree flashguns have different properties with two different triggering devices, so the Skyports could be different again.

Thanks.

The sync speed has nothing to do with the flash exposure. If you had to go all the way down to 1/30 to get a good exposure (with the aid of ambient lighting), your flash power levels were either set too low or, if they were at full power, they were too far from the subject.

And, as an aside, it turns out that Lotto was right about the real sync speed you need to use when using a PW or any other RF remote trigger. It needs to be 1/100 instead of 1/125 or you'll get a thing dark bar at the bottom of the frame. 1/125 wouldn't be a problem if you were using a sync cable to trigger the flash but once you introduce a remote triggering system in place of the sync cable, you introduce a slight delay which is enough to cause that thin dark bar at the bottom of the frame.

I understand that and when I get time I must re-run this experiment but I do have an image where I see the guns just fire in sync @1/125sec with the subject very underexposed. I guess I'm catching the beginning of the pulse.

In another experiment with the white card, straight flash firing the PW gave 1/350 sec sync, IR 1/250 sync and the EBay radio varied from 1/200sec an stable @ 1/125 sec.

So for relay flash, which is the real experiment in this thread, the sync speed is even lower again, effectively we're going down to slow shutter sync speeds.

From the PW manual I was aware of the delay in relay mode and the lower sync speed.

I'll need to bring out my Nikon guns too, my biggest surprise is the different way guns behave and my primary mistake here was assuming a 430/550/580 & 580EX II would work and were interchangeable when they are not ~ and may be another explanation to some of my own erratic dark frames in the past ~ among the reasons I moved to the PW recently and now maybe the PWs won't cure this problem ~ it seems to be a combination of radio physics and individual equipment limitations.

The workaround of lowering the sync speed is a sacrifice where my main applications requires even much higher sync speed.

Thanks, loads to be getting on with here.

PacAce wrote in post #4625907
The sync speed has nothing to do with the flash exposure. .