Are flashguns supposed to be unreliable?

kazysaurus said:

Guy Parsons said:

kazysaurus said:

khunpapa said:

kazysaurus said:

- Do you believe that it is my settings rather than the flashgun?

I would love a discussion on this. Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you.

Regards,

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There are millions of flashes out there. Generic assumption is never be good. There's nothing 100.00% reliable except death and US tax.

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Thanks for the comment.

I can agree with that. I assume your recommendation it to test other products before making any conclusions about flashguns.

Its just interesting that there are millions of flashes, but not very many that complain about the reliability - hence I was wondering if I am just unlucky.

Thank you.

Regards,

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In my case never any flash problems over many years. In the last years of film used maybe 4 types of Nikon flashes with no problems, migrated those to Olympus digital cameras again with no problems (except no TTL of course). Eventually bought Olympus flashes to use on Olympus cameras and a Panasonic camera, no problems at all, they work when they should.

The flash should always fire when in manual mode and the camera set to trigger flash. Some cameras do it differently but Olympus has Redeye/Auto/Fill/Manual/Off (plus some second curtain choices etc) as the choices on the body - where Redeye does the very annoying pre-flashes, Auto fires the flash when the camera thinks it may be needed (as TTL), Fill to make it fire every time (as TTL), Manual to fire every time but with body control of flash power.

From your descriptions to me it seems the flash is faulty. If it won't reliably trigger when the test button is pressed then there's something definitely wrong.

Regards...... Guy

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Thank you very much for the reply. You have confirmed my assumptions.

Phottix just got back to me and said the exact same as you, "it won't reliably trigger when the test button is pressed then there's something definitely wrong.".

Their customer service is very good, but I am nervous about flashguns as they do appear to degrade after a while, perhaps a bit too quick?

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kazysaurus said:

Hello,

I use a Phottix Mitros+ TTL Transceiver Flash and Odin II TTL Flash Trigger Transmitter for Sony both privately and sometimes also for professional work - and I have achieved good results with this setup many times.

What bothers me is that the flash fires extremely inconsistently. Sometimes the flash fires when I press the shutter button, and often it does not, with the exact same settings.

In my mind, M (Manual) means that the flash is supposed to fire when I want it to regardless of ambient light - is this correct? Also the camera is set to M.

Very often the flash does not even fire when I press the Test button on the flashgun (with fresh batteries)! Does this mean that the flash is broken? I cannot fathom any other explanation.

I had to send back the first Phottix flashgun I got as it was too unreliable after a few weeks, and the second one I got has started to become unusable too, after a couple of months. I just never know when these things will work or not.

I usually shoot in M mode (both camera and flash), both with the flash on camera and off camera.

Are flashguns known to be this way? Why is the flash working on Wednesday and not on Thursday - even though I did not touch a single setting and both flash and camera are in Manual mode?

- If there a "flashgun lottery" as with CPUs? You never know if your flashgun is going to work or not?

- Do I need to purchase expensive Broncolor gear if i want consistent flash?

- Is Phottix known to be crap?

- Am I the only one with this problem?

- Do you believe that it is my settings rather than the flashgun?

I would love a discussion on this. Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you.

Regards,

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kazysaurus said:

Mike_PEAT said:

Most of the issues with flashes going defective (cheap ones AND top of the line OEM units) is people machine gunning the flash at high power levels beyond the stated limits in the manual.

In the manual it's usually stated how many times in a set period of time you can fire the flash at a specific power level.

The top of the line flashes will shut down and display something like HOT in the display.

Cheaper flashes may just burn out, or melt.

Flashes generate HEAT, and a portable battery operated flash is not meant to be machine gunned.

In the studio I use large metal strobes that are FAN COOLED...although I've been to other studios who's strobes AREN'T fan cooled, and we fried the strobes during the event.

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Thanks for the comment.

I am not going to say that I do not "machine gun" the flash sometimes. I need to for the stuff that I shot. I never thought the Mitros+ was a very "cheap" flashgun though. Maybe in the mid-range for small flashes. If it did burn out/melt however it is curious that it still works from time to time.

I am starting to feel like flash units are like computer software - no one can say what the real problem is even after hours of troubleshooting.

I might need to look into something larger and more reliable so am curious about Profoto B1X, Godox AD600 Pro or Broncolor Siros 400/800 L.

Regards,

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kazysaurus said:

Hello,

I use a Phottix Mitros+ TTL Transceiver Flash and Odin II TTL Flash Trigger Transmitter for Sony both privately and sometimes also for professional work - and I have achieved good results with this setup many times.

What bothers me is that the flash fires extremely inconsistently. Sometimes the flash fires when I press the shutter button, and often it does not, with the exact same settings.

In my mind, M (Manual) means that the flash is supposed to fire when I want it to regardless of ambient light - is this correct? Also the camera is set to M.

Very often the flash does not even fire when I press the Test button on the flashgun (with fresh batteries)! Does this mean that the flash is broken? I cannot fathom any other explanation.

I had to send back the first Phottix flashgun I got as it was too unreliable after a few weeks, and the second one I got has started to become unusable too, after a couple of months. I just never know when these things will work or not.

I usually shoot in M mode (both camera and flash), both with the flash on camera and off camera.

Are flashguns known to be this way? Why is the flash working on Wednesday and not on Thursday - even though I did not touch a single setting and both flash and camera are in Manual mode?

- If there a "flashgun lottery" as with CPUs? You never know if your flashgun is going to work or not?

- Do I need to purchase expensive Broncolor gear if i want consistent flash?

- Is Phottix known to be crap?

- Am I the only one with this problem?

- Do you believe that it is my settings rather than the flashgun?

I would love a discussion on this. Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you.

Regards,

Click to expand...

lbuclk= said:

brand of batteries matter also, try brand name batteries to see if this shortens recycling times.

Click to expand...

lbuclk= said:

kazysaurus said:

Hello,

I use a Phottix Mitros+ TTL Transceiver Flash and Odin II TTL Flash Trigger Transmitter for Sony both privately and sometimes also for professional work - and I have achieved good results with this setup many times.

What bothers me is that the flash fires extremely inconsistently. Sometimes the flash fires when I press the shutter button, and often it does not, with the exact same settings.

In my mind, M (Manual) means that the flash is supposed to fire when I want it to regardless of ambient light - is this correct? Also the camera is set to M.

Very often the flash does not even fire when I press the Test button on the flashgun (with fresh batteries)! Does this mean that the flash is broken? I cannot fathom any other explanation.

I had to send back the first Phottix flashgun I got as it was too unreliable after a few weeks, and the second one I got has started to become unusable too, after a couple of months. I just never know when these things will work or not.

I usually shoot in M mode (both camera and flash), both with the flash on camera and off camera.

Are flashguns known to be this way? Why is the flash working on Wednesday and not on Thursday - even though I did not touch a single setting and both flash and camera are in Manual mode?

- If there a "flashgun lottery" as with CPUs? You never know if your flashgun is going to work or not?

- Do I need to purchase expensive Broncolor gear if i want consistent flash?

- Is Phottix known to be crap?

- Am I the only one with this problem?

- Do you believe that it is my settings rather than the flashgun?

I would love a discussion on this. Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you.

Regards,

Click to expand...

brand of batteries matter also, try brand name batteries to see if this shortens recycling times.

Click to expand...

Richard B99 said:

kazysaurus said:

Hello,

I use a Phottix Mitros+ TTL Transceiver Flash and Odin II TTL Flash Trigger Transmitter for Sony both privately and sometimes also for professional work - and I have achieved good results with this setup many times.

What bothers me is that the flash fires extremely inconsistently. Sometimes the flash fires when I press the shutter button, and often it does not, with the exact same settings.

In my mind, M (Manual) means that the flash is supposed to fire when I want it to regardless of ambient light - is this correct? Also the camera is set to M.

Very often the flash does not even fire when I press the Test button on the flashgun (with fresh batteries)! Does this mean that the flash is broken? I cannot fathom any other explanation.

I had to send back the first Phottix flashgun I got as it was too unreliable after a few weeks, and the second one I got has started to become unusable too, after a couple of months. I just never know when these things will work or not.

I usually shoot in M mode (both camera and flash), both with the flash on camera and off camera.

Are flashguns known to be this way? Why is the flash working on Wednesday and not on Thursday - even though I did not touch a single setting and both flash and camera are in Manual mode?

- If there a "flashgun lottery" as with CPUs? You never know if your flashgun is going to work or not?

- Do I need to purchase expensive Broncolor gear if i want consistent flash?

- Is Phottix known to be crap?

- Am I the only one with this problem?

- Do you believe that it is my settings rather than the flashgun?

I would love a discussion on this. Any feedback is much appreciated. Thank you.

Regards,

Click to expand...

I find my flashguns tend to get unreliable after being dropped onto hard surfaces knocked out of hot shoes and onto hard surfaces or being made to flash continuously because of a triggering issue. On all of these they tend to be terminally unreliable.

Otherwise... No

Those symptoms are far more representative of a basic issue with the gun itself (I.e. if the test flash doesn’t work, that’s nothing to do with the camera). All the others sound reminiscent of poor camera / transmitter to flash type connections. Sometimes the flash / transmitter not seating in the camera hot shoe can cause that. Poor fit/ wobbly fit can cause such intermittent issues. Those are really frustrating (I have one Yongnuo flash trigger that’s fine in two top end bodies but has to be pushed in ‘just so’ on a lower end body. Once it’s in and locked, no problem but up ‘till I worked it out it drove me nuts.

But that issue with the test flash just makes me think it’s the guns...

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Chaplain Mark said:

The most likely suspect for me is the battery pack connection inside the flashgun; no voltage or insufficient voltage equals failure of the flashgun to fire.

Try removing the battery pack (if possible) and polishing ALL battery contacts with 1000-grit sandpaper or a pencil eraser if super-fine sandpaper is not available.

Hope this helps....!!

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Paul Pasco said:

My Nikon flashes are reliable as can be.

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