Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

It's ok. I've lurked here for a long time and one thing you don't find around here is arrogance. No question too dumb, and people are always eager to help.
It took me a REALLY long time to get to where I am because there aren't too many places around where people would "dumb it down" for me, or where arrogance didn't prevail.

hi, instead of opening a new thread, i hope i can use this old thread bout optical trigger.

after plenty of research, i feel in love with AB, and planning to get several to start up my little studio.

let's say, i have a Sony NEX camera. its flash only allows 'pre TTL' mode, no Manual power mode. and after some research, it seem the AB wont support 'pre TTL' mode and there isnt any trigger for NEX. any workaround? is there any possibility of firmware update for AB to support 'preflashTTL"? or i have to look into other brand option?

Not familiar with your camera, but if it has a hotshoe, you can buy a CST and a CSRB. Then, you would not be using your on camera flash at all, and would be operating the lights in full manual mode. One receiver would do, in general, as the other AB lights would respond in slave mode to the radio triggered AB.

(If you plan to shoot outdoors, spacious venues, or in setups where the slaves may not reliably see the triggered flash, you would want receivers for each AB. If you plan to use your lights at shoots where others will also be shooting, you would want receivers, or your lights will fire whenever anyone fires a flash)

ETA: googled the NEX, seems no hotshoe. I am unaware of any method to otherwise work around the preflash issue. Perhaps someone makes an adapter for the smart accessory terminal, but that seems doubtful, and might still not eliminate a pre-flash sort of problem, if the camera still sends a pre-flash trigger signal.

BDP: thanks for your reply. Nex is fairly a new camera system in the market, sadly, sony always make proprietary stuff, hence the NEX is stuck with a weird digital connector for their flash... and the provided flash cant do manual or anyway to bypass pre-ttl.

i am just wondering if PCB will ever have plans to add 'pre-TTL flash' optical trigger functions into ABs?

Well, the Nex system is not really aimed at the studio photographer, rather for the gosmall and light pohotographer. The trade off is there is not enough room for a standard or iISO hotshoe.

There cannot be an firmware update to Alien Bees, as there is no firmware to update. This would require hardware changes. With this in mind, it is highly unlikely White Lightning, Alien Bees, or Zeus will ever have preflash ignore functions.

Additionally, flashes with no manual setting are searching for a specific output. The preflash helps calculate the amount of light needed. Once it is figured out, then you add more light. This can very much affect your exposure.

If you really want to do this, you can use a digital ready optical slave to then trigger a radio remote or the light directly.

TS: thanks a lot for the clarification.

I just bought a Sony Nex 5n and tried using the flash on the 5n to trigger my Alien Bees. Initially it wouldn't work due to the pre-flash but I tried some experiments. The pre-flash is weak while the main flash is strong. I was able to use a piece of paper to reduce the effect of the pre-flash so it wouldn't trigger the Alien Bees but main flash did trigger the Bees.

I've only tried it a few times but it seemed to be consistent. An ND gel might be a better solution to attenuate the pre-flash.

-Peter