Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I've had the cyber commander for a little while now (done a few shoots), and I'm quite sure that I'm not going through the process of setting up/metering my lights correctly.

I have 3 Einsteins, with 2 on order, with the appropriate receivers for each of the them, the cybercommander, and a separate transmitter that stays on the camera.

There are two modes that I'd like to work in:

1. Set up the lights in the approximate position, and then while standing where the subject would be, meter each light individually. Right now, I run into two issues:
A. When I press right button to meter the light, all the lights fire.
B. I swear the readout never matches actually what my Sekonic meter says (by a lot). Is there supposed to be a standard f-stop reading on the display somewhere like my Sekonic? I'm worried I'm reading the wrong number.

Let's say I meter the main to F11, the fill to F8 and the kicker to F11 individually. I'd like to then meter everything together, and then adjust everything proportionately so that the camera facing reading under the subjects chin is F11.

2. Once the lights are set up, with the subject in place, and the lights fine tuned position wise for the subject, I'd like to fine tune the lighting using the modeling lamps. Right now, I run into the following issue:
A. Even with the modeling lights set to "track" - somewhere in the process of #1 above, I end up getting the modeling lamps so they aren't tracking anymore.

It may be that my process needs to change because of new technology - I'm OK with that...I just need to know what that process is!

Mike

The good news is that the CC is designed to do exactly what you're describing.

Make sure that each of the Einsteins is assigned to a different channel. (All must be on same frequency and CC must be set to this frequency also.)

Then go to SETUP>OPEN MEMORY>STUDIO and OPEN ALL FROM STUDIO.

That should get your Einsteins set up for the CC to control them properly.

On the FLASH screen, you just select an individual channel and push the right joystick to meter an individual light. Once you've done that for each light and adjusted to taste, click to the left with the left joystick past CH 1 to ALL and meter all of them simultaneously.

After you've metered ALL, you can adjust the power of all the lights up or down as a big group (leaving CC on the ALL setting). The ratios you established will be maintained. You'll watch the working aperture go up or down as you adjust the power. If you ever go back and change the power of an individual light, you'll have to re-meter for ALL.

Your problem with modeling lights is probably due to not putting your lights on separate channels. You can go to SETUP>LIGHT SETTINGS and adjust the model lamp behavior for each strobe individually or for ALL - just like on the FLASH screen. You just pick a channel (CH 1, etc...) to adjust an individual light or pick ALL to set all the same way. You can also go to the MODEL menu and adjust the brightness of each strobe's modeling lamp relative to that strobe's output. Since you're using all Einsteins I can't think of a reason to do that to individual strobes though. You could assign an offset to all of them if you just want the modeling lamps generally brighter or dimmer than they ordinarily are.

If the CC is metering different from another meter, make sure you have no global offset and that your ISO and shutter speed are set to correspond with your camera (and with the other meter). All of this is adjusted under SETUP>FLASHMETER.

You have to make sure you turn the slaves off. With Einsteins you can do this for all lights in the menu system using ALL>Slaves off. For vintage Buff lights, you have to insert a blank sync plug in the sync jack.

As for the meter, they are factory calibrated against a Sekonic and typically track within 1/10f. If they are off for some reason, there is an auto calibrate routine in the menu system. I'm at home and don't have a CC in front of me, but Tech can help you through both issues.

I definitely have all the lights on separate channels because I can adjust their flash powers independently.

I'm 99% sure that slave mode is the issue as to why all the lights are firing when I'm trying to meter the lights individually.

As for why the modeling lights get out of sync, I'm still a little baffled. The only thing that I can think of is that I'm fumble fingering things somehow.

What I ended up doing the other day was actually taking an image and then comparing it to what I was seeing in front of me to determine if the model lights were tracked properly, which of course kind of defeats the purpose.

If I want to check visually on the cybercommander to determine if each model light was tracked properly to the flash power, is there a way to do that?

(as for the meter being off - I need to check the ISO setting on that - I bet it's off).

First, check your ISO on each meter. Second, be careful in how you read your meters. For example, (f/11' 9 vs. f/16' 1) or (f/4.0' 9 vs. 5.6' 1) are each only 2/10 of a stop difference, even though numerically they appear vastly different. Similarly, f/11' 7 is the same thing as f/14. Also, check your shutterspeed. Often, it will not make a difference in studio, but if one is set in the 1/30 of a second range or slower, then ambient light is going to affect your reading. Remember the meter readings can be made from the main page/screen of the Cyber Commander. Some think you must go to the FLASHMETER option in the menu. You can do that, but it is not necessary.

As for the model lamps, it is possible to create an offset between relative flash and relative model lamp power. This is useful for shooting low power flash, but keeping bright model lamps for seeing and focussing, or hogh power flash and low model lamps for running on battery power. Model lamps functions are color coded red, and can be adjusted in the red MODEL screen. It is possible to have an offset so large, that it seems the model lamps are not working, whereas they are actually trying to maintain that offset, but are restrained by thier limits.

To fix this, first make sure your flash units are in TRACK. Since you are using Einstein, you can look at the LCD of the lights to ensure the lightning bolt appears in the model window. Then set each of your flash units to full power via the CC. In the MODEL page of the CC (the predominatly red screen), go to each channel and raise the red dash (the same way you raise and lower flash power) until it reaches the top. If the red dash is already at the top, lower the dash until you see it move (this may take a couple of seconds) then move it back up. This will eliminate any offsets.

If the lights are not in track, go to the CC SETUP>LIGHTSETTINGS>CH=all, MODEL MODE=TRACK.