Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Just received my Alien Bee 800 in the mail last week.. used it for the first time during a session today. I had it synced to my camera ( a canon 5d MK ii).. was testing my settings and I heard a POP.. and ofcourse the image was over exposed.. I adjusted my settings and noticed that half of the bottom of each picture was solid black but the top half was lit up perfectly. I had to unsync my camera and just use the other bulb with the reflector. I looked at my AB really good after my client left, and noticed that the little legs part of the flash tube was charred. What did I do wrong? Will I have to buy another flash tube ALREADY? this sucks.. to say the least!

What shutter speed did you use? It sounds like you exceeded your max sync speed.... which results in blacked out areas of your image. You should be shooting in full Manual mode at a typical 200/250 shutter speed. Are you? When you over exposed the image, it's because you used too much power for a given aperture. The pops are VERY normal when strobe power is turned up and "charring" is also normal. Are you experienced with using strobes and/or light meters at all? No offense but it doesn't sound like it. The problems you described are clearly operator error and not faults of the strobe.... so I doubt anything is ruined at all.

The black bars are indicative of exceeding your x-sync speed. On that camera, you may need to set to 1/160 to be completely bar free. Shutter speed will not affect the exposure of flash photography as it does in continuous/natural light photography.

If the "burned" areas are inside the glass at the legs, this is perfectly normal, and actually arrives to you that way. There are devices known as "getters" that collect the impurities mixed into the xenon gas and deposit them there rather than letting them deposit elsewhere in the tube.

If the "burned" areas are on the metal exterior of the legs, then that would have damaged the head, too. Considering the amount of use, I do not think this is the case.

As for the pop. The flash firing will cause an audible pop, but it should be the same every time the flash fires at a given power setting. It is possible that something did go bad and caused a pop, however, nothing in the description leads me to that conclusion, yet.

Does the appear to function normally by outward appearances (i.e. it turns on, it fires from the test button, no sounds other than the pop of the flash firing and the fan, etc)? If you adjust the power via the slider, you should be able to visually see the difference in power from one setting to the next when you press the test button.

Be sure your camera is in manual mode, including manual ISO (autofocus is OK). Assuming 1/160, ISO 100 and f/8 or f/11, you should be able to see the effects of the variation in flash power in you images when making changes to the slider.

Please note, when you adjust from a higher power to a lower power, the flash will fire at the higher power unless sufficient time has elapsed to let the flash power bleed off as indicated by the red and green LED's.

No, I am not experienced in anything to do with strobes. I am a natural light photog that just recently started doing studio. I was shooting manual as always. Myshutterspeed was 200. Thank you for the info.

Thank you technical support. I will try 100 iso tomorrow during my next session.

Noooo... not ISO / ASA
Shutter speed. Using 1/250 is too fast for the light. Use something longer, like 1/200 or 1/125

Sorry, but this post is confusing. She did state she was shooting at 1/200 (though you are correct that something slower may work better on that camera) and would shoot at ISO 100, per my suggestion. ISO and shutter speed were both at play in the original post.

FWIW.... I find that 1/160 shutter speed is the fastest that I can go for reliable sync (no black bars) with radio triggers on my 5D mkII.

No problem. Once you get the basics down, it will get easier and easier for ya.





Do you use Cybersyncs? I use them and they will sync much faster. A good trigger should keep up with your camera's sync speed.

To be honest, I don't recall if the CyberSync system will get me to the full 1/200 rated sync for the 5D mkII. For most cases 1/160 works fine for me and I consider that my safe sync speed.

Sometimes I use cheap auction site triggers (RF-602) and definitely need to be at 1/160. On other occasions I use a CST in the hotshoe and CSXCV's on Einsteins and I honestly don't recall if I can get 1/200 with that set up (probably can). From what I read, not all 5D mkII's are created equal - some are slower than others. The camera's rated sync is only 1/200 anyway so I'm not off by much.