350d + godox X1c + 2 godox 350TT - what am i doing wrong?

Reya wrote:

Hello all,

I picked up the X1c and a couple of godox 350TTc's for my aging 350D today, and can't (for the life of me) get it working.

The transmitter (sitting on top of the camera) is connected to the camera by cable.

??!!

The 350D doesn't have a PC sync port for a cabled flash connection; none of the dRebels do—you have to have an XXD or higher end body to get one of those. If you're using a shutter release cable, that's for hooking an X1R-C receiver into the 350D's shutter cable release port so you can have a wireless shutter release and use the X1T as an in-hand shutter remote.

You do not need to cable the X1T-C transmitter to the 350D to use it as your radio flash master. You just need to put it on the hotshoe.

The 350TT's are both set to TTL (one master and one slave and both set to CH1 - i've tried numerous combinations and configurations with no success).

Which slave?

The TT350-C has three slave modes: RF slave, and the S1/S2 optical slave modes.

You need to have the TT350-C in the RF slave mode to control it from an X1T-C. You do this by holding down the SYNC button until the antenna/lollipop icon on the lower left flashes, and then turn the wheel to put it into Master (M icon), or Slave (S icon), or out of RF triggering modes altogether.

If you got into slave mode by hitting the SLAVE button and you see an S1 or S2 icon in the lower right corner, you're in an optical slave mode. You want to turn that off by hitting the SLAVE button and cycling through the "dumb" optical slave modes.

Be glad. The TT685/V860II have "smart" optical slave modes as well, which further complicates things.

When I press the 'TEST' button on the reciever,

Why are you using a receiver? That's only if you're going to try and trigger a flash that doesn't have a Godox radio trigger built in (e.g., a Canon 580EXII). The TT350 already has one built in and does not need one added onto it foot.

a picture is taken (the flash' are not triggered), nor are they triggered by pressing the "main picture taking button" on the 350D. However, if I press the 'TEST' button on my master TT350' the flash is triggered (on both the master and the slave) AND the camera takes a picture on the second flash...(isn't it supposed to be the other way around?).

You have the remote shutter set, and you've probably got the other shutter in optical slave mode. So, no that's what you told it to do.

However, the picture is entirely black (the flash is either triggered to soon or too late).

In TTL, the camera tells the flash to send out a "preflash" burst of light to meter, and then based on the measurements it takes while metering, adjusts the flash's power output for the main burst in sync with the shutter release.

If your optical master flash is in TTL, you need to put the slave in S2 optical slave mode to avoid triggering early on the metering pre-flash. You probably have S1 set, which fires the slave on the first burst it sees, and you're setting it off early on the TTL metering "preflash".

Also, this is just me, but why get TT350s for off-camera use? A TT600 is more powerful and cheaper, and you can still do HSS with it, even if you can't do TTL. But TTL is not often required for off-camera lighting. I get using a TT350 on-camera and if it's your only flash to have it do double-duty as on and off camera flash. But to have two of them so you can use one off camera all the time doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

And the TT350 itself can be an on-camera master to the other one. You don't have to use an X1T-C. The X1T-C, XPro-C, TT350-C, TT685-C, and V860II-C can all be used as TTL/HSS on-camera radio masters in the Godox X system.