Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

The direction of the camera in and of itself will not change the behavior of the flash units. If the extension cord was the problem, then it would not fire regardless of where you were pointed. I used the extension cord and pointed to my alien bee and the softbox and clicked the camera, it flashed... when pointed to the girl, it wont.... like it refuse to flash to the girl.


When the photo was taken of the subject, did either flash fire? Yes and no.. it flashed like twice.

Was the determination made based on actually looking at the lights, or by reviewing the photos? no i noticed it wasnt flashing through view finder. and also asked model if it flashed and she said no

What kind of camera were you using? Canon 7D

Was the dial on top set to M? What was the shutter speed, aperture and ISO set to? Yes dial was set to M, shutter speed.. not remember but i think maybe 125? iso 200?

Was this day or night, or in between? 5-6pm before sunset

Depending on camera make and model and the settings applied, there may be a background gremlin that is causing the flash triggering operation in the camera to not happen. Or it could be as simple as a bad sync cord. Sync cord silver outlet is smashed little but it fits in my 7D

However, If you are expecting the slave eyes to function in that scenario, you may find they will not. The optical slave eyes rely on line of sight (which includes bounce light), which is not as present out doors. With the mods you are using, the slave eyes are facing away from the master light source, and there is nothing to bounce the master light off of. So the master light (the one with the cord) should fire, but I would not be surprised if the slaved light does not.

Sounds like a bad (intermittent) synch cord connection to me, especially since you note the end that plugs into your camera has some damage, and moving your camera seemed to be related to the misfiring.