I recently bought a Lastolite Ezybox. I did some test shots indoor and the results were very good. You can see them from my previous posting.
This weekend I brought it outdoor and tried to use it as a fill flash for my sunset shots. The problem is my remote flash wouldn't fire when it was mounted with the Ezybox.
Here is my setup: Nikon D300 built-in flash as a commander, Nikon SB800 flash as a remote slave. As the sun was setting, I had my model stand between me and the sun. So I tried to use the softbox to fill. The SB800 was on a stand about 2 feet away, 45 degree on my right. The flash was not triggered reliably.
After doing some research online, I found that I should be able to trigger the flash even in bright sun light. The main thing that I need to do is to make sure the sensor on the flash is not being blocked.
The most important thing is to make sure the sensor on the slave flash is not blocked. Here are the things to do:
- Turn the sensor around and make it face backward. The sensor for CLS of the SB800 is not the red rectangle on the front of the flash. It's actually the circle on the side. I turned the flash around and mounted it like the picture shown.
- Not to use the 5th battery compartment. The compartment may block the line of sight to the sensor.
- Turn on the alarm on the flash, so when it is triggered, it beeps.
- Make sure the sensor of the flash is in the line of sight of the built-in flash while shooting
With these in minde, I went shooting and this time the remote flash was much more reliable. The hard part is not to get the slave flash in the frame when making sure its sensor is in the line of sight.
That's interesting. Thank you. Some days ago I tried also doing some wedding portraits with an Ezybox and an SB-900. However, it did not fire reliably (much sun light). I assumed the sensor is the big red in the front, and turned it accordingly, but now I realise it's on the side of the flash unit.
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