Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi I need to ask a couple of questions about my White Lighting units. (1200)
1. I have used them for more than 16 years in the studio.
2. only changed maybe 2 strobes during this time
3. shot over 300000 images in the studio.
4. I had an exposure issue on one of my jobs so I checked the output
using full power I was only getting 5.6 about 2metres away.
TWO QUESTIONS will changing the strobes correct this or
have these units lost power and need to be repaired/serviced?

THANKS EDWIN

You might need a flashtube replacement: check if both half tubes are firing (squint your eyes or use sunglasses).

Thanks for the reply. Both strobes are working


*Mod edit: merged this post into original post*

What modifier were you using, or were you using one at all? Also, what were your meter settings (shutter speed and ISO)?

It is possible one or more capacitors are bad.

I am using a Multidome/photoflex soft boxes.
You use the term Bad what are you saying? they are both working.

Do you have anything plugged into the telephone style jack on the back of the light? If so, unplug that and see what you get.


Your flash tubes are working. I am suspecting the capacitors, or the parts that store the energy that is released to allow the flash to flash. In a way, capacitors are to flash units what batteries are to flashlights.

There could be other issues going on as well, like a bad power slider, but either way, there does seem to be a problem, and the unit will need to come in for us to determine the cause, unless you are using the telephone jack. In that case, we can do some more digging.

Yes I have the telephone style jack plug in and attached to the Nikon I am using this is fairly new as I was using the alien bee jack to set every thing off but I bent the plug and then I started to used the 1200 to set everything off.
This is why I am looking at the pocket wizard?

When you are testing the light's output, remove the telephone cord and re-meter (again, this is the square-ish telephone jack, I am not talking about the round headphone jack. The round headphone jack cannot alter power settings).

If the telephone cord is used, it will override the back panel settings. If there is no controlling device to tell the telephone connection what to do, then it could be doing anything. However, I am not sure how you are attaching the telephone style jack to your Nikon.