Lights and sync cables

smelltheglove

Very very recently on a thread here someone mentioned how the sync cable can damage your camera, something like power surge or similar.

Anyway, big warning to all here get the remote triggers, next on my list. I am now giving up on my cheap strobe lights hopefully will replace them as soon as poss, I had a house call for a friend of a friend sort of thing on the weekend and used my sync cable. A couple of times my camera just refused tot ake the picture, so I pulled away readjusted settings etc and put the camera back to my eye, now with me wearing glasses I tend to crush my face against the camera to see right into the viewfinder, and what happened only an electric shock to my nose:eek: I thought it was just a once off, went again, shutter got stuck, turned camera off and then on and went again, another little shock which was quite sharo and a frozen shutter.

So I gave up and used bounce for my last few, now fair enough I had taken around 100 pics at this stage but it was scary and all I was thinking was, what would I do without my beloved camera.

Point is I just wanted to share my near death experience so to speak and advise you all defo go up the route of remote trigger or there is another device the steve recommended, just be careful, it would have been an expensive lesson to learn if the surge went into the camera rather than my nose:eek:

melekalikimaka

how was the cable attached... sync to hotshoe?

smelltheglove

sync to camera. I have previously used a hotshoe also although it was attached to my spare at home.

Buzz Lightyear

OK Rach I'm an electrician by trade, so I'm just trying to get an understanding here of what is going on. It sounds like you could have a bad / broken earth on your lamps. Now generally speaking a lamp only needs a live and a neutral. Even with modern day eletronics the 'live power' is separated from the camera power by a transformer. Now there are voltage reducers which electronically reduce the mains voltage to save low voltage however these apparatus tend to have an earth associated with them on any associated metal to send any faults to earth. By the sound of it, if you check your plug top you could find that your earth cable (green/yellow) has come loose. If its a case you haven't got one then bin the strobe. The 'voltage reducer' has then sprung a leak and will go bang soon if it does not hurt someone more than just a ping on the nose. But first of all check your plug top.

Buzz

Buzz Lightyear

Actually its not my field, but rather than bin it it might know a chap who could fix it for you if it is on the electronics. This chap is in your area and is a wiz in electronics. He might be able to fix it. I'll PM you his number when I get to work in the morning.

Borderfox

I use either wireless triggers or a flash to trigger the synch on the studio lights they both have flash synchs built in so on camera flash set at 1/128th will trigger them fine.

gorilla_image

Maybe there's arching between your self and the connection? Is the sync cable head oushed all the way in or is there a little bit of metal showing? maybe you could secure the connection with insulation tape.

Alterantively Have you thought of using radio slaves? Cheap ones are available on ebay for as low as €25. I got a set about 2 years ago and they work ok outdoors, and very well ondoors. In honesty they're prone to the occasional interferance. Otherwise, you can get a decent Elincrom set at Beringhams for around €150 - I'm sure you could get them cheaper with a bit of research.

smelltheglove

To be honest guys I am just warning others that what I was told only a couple of weeks ago about the possible damage to a camera from using lights via sync cable almost came true, there were a few involved in the discussion here so they prob remember.

I have made the decision to get new lights anyway and remote trigger, these lights will most likely be binned, they've gotten their use, only strobes, but just wanted to put the warning out there to people to use remote triggers rather than the cable.

minikin

Hi Rachel,

You can get a wein safe sync (plug your sync lead into it, it sits in the hot shoe and steps the voltage down to make it safe for digital cameras... lower than 12v)

Have one which i don't use any more (wireless triggers are deffo the way to go)

here's the little fella...

Carrigman

Whatever about the safety reasons, a remote trigger makes huge sense from a shooting perspective. I recently purchased an Elinchrom trigger for my D-Lite 4's from Paddy Barker's in Cork and it affords much more freedom of movement for both myself and the subject(s).

Regards,

John