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Chris Hawkins
29-Jan-2000, 17:24
I've only used modern electronic equipment and don't understand how a studio fla sh is triggered when using a manual cable release. Can someone explain the opti ons to me?

Garry Edwards
29-Jan-2000, 17:34
I don't quite understand your question because the means of firing the shutter (e.g. whether you use a cable release or not) has no bearing on triggering the flash. Assuming that your shutter is synchronised for flash you simply plug in the lead, make sure that if your shutter has a choice of X or M settings it is set to X for electronic flash, and that's it! Obviously, if using this shutter/lens for the first time it would be sensible to look through the lens the check that it does in fact synchronise. Hope this help, regards, Garry

Ellis Vener
29-Jan-2000, 18:14
Chris, Which lens or lenses are you using? are they mounted in Copal shutters?

Richard Rankin
29-Jan-2000, 19:40
It is the same idea as a 35mm flash sitting in its hot shoe except in LF you generally run a cord between the camera and the flash instead of having them so closely joined together. Rather simplistically, the physical connection between the 35mm camera body and dedicated flash is replaced with a cord between them. Many 35mm flashes are used mounted off-camera as well, and would be the nearly identical concept as with a studio flash. The basic idea of this is that, if you are using a shuttered lens, and the shutter is flash-synched, then the shutter trips the flash connection at the opportune time (fully open on leaf shutters, I believe). [Aside: Some LF and MF shutters have two flash settings, one for electronic flash and one for bulbs. This is because bulbs take longer to 'fire' than an electronic flash, which fires faster then the shutter can close and can go off at the exactly correct time. Using electronic flash in bulb mode will result in incorrectly exposed photos] In any event, the firing of the SHUTTER whether by cable release or any other method, results in the triggering of the flash connection as well. So, the means used to trip the shutter is irrelevant, it is the TRIPPING of the shutter that counts. The flash connection on a modern lens is a smallish round tube with a very small peg in it. The 'camera' end of the synch cord is pushed into this small tube, and the other end of the cord, much like a radio/stereo jack on my lights, is plugged into the strobe or controller. Then, assuming your lights don't need to be otherwise adjusted, and are turned on, when the shutter fires, the flash fires. On some shutters you have to actually manually turn a switch on the lens to either X (electronic) or M (bulb) flash to get it to fire the connection when the shutter is tripped but I don't have any modern ones like this - only older ones. Also, of course, most studio lights will have slave eyes which will fire them when any other flash fires. This event could, of course, be independent of the shutter firing, but would normally be a result of one light being connected to the camera lens. When the shutter fires, the first light goes off, setting off all the other lights via their slave eyes. Becasue of the high speed firing of electronic flash, the time delay between the different firings doesn't matter in most cases. There are also radio packs that can fire the lights via a radio signal. But I believe that the three options: 1) direct cord connect 2) slave eye, and 3) radio connect are the main choices. Obviously there could be an infrared trigger as well that would be similar to the radio signal sort and numerous cord arrangements, etc. But direct connection, light trigger or signal trigger would be the three basic options. Hope that helps a bit. Richard

Chris Hawkins
29-Jan-2000, 22:24
I'll be using a 360mm Caltar IIs with a Copol shutter. I appreciate the thoughtful response so far.

David_892
30-Jan-2000, 15:55
One thing youshould try (I can only assum), is if the synch is attached but not firing you may have one of the following problems; synch set to M. Synch is broken (it happened to me and it can be a pain in the arse) the cable itself is damaged in some way

Chris Hawkins
30-Jan-2000, 15:56
Richard: Thanks for your very clear explanation. I'm buying the lens on Tuesday and when checking out the lens previously, I wasn't looking for a flash hookup thus did not see it. Whoops, smiling red face, and thanks for your patience. Chris