Sony7RII / Alien bees / Triggers/ fail. Suggestions please.

[Maureen]

Hello everyone!

I am a bit frustrated with this situation. I was planning to shoot for the first time with alien bees and my Sony 7Rii, however, I was unable to trigger the flash wirelessly. The studio I rented gave me a trigger to place on my camera's hot shoe, I tested it alone and it worked perfectly but didn't work when pressing the shooter. I made sure my camera had the right settings (wireless flash) but didn't get any results.

Any suggestions on to what could be the problem? Maybe I need a hot shoe adapter for the trigger?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[LiveShots]

It should be a trigger that is compatible with your hot shoe or has a cable that connects to the camera's multi-function port, like PocketWizard.

[Maureen]

Thank you LiveShots. I think I'll have to buy an adapter to make sure I can shoot with any flash or trigger. Sorry about my ignorance but what you call multi-function port is the microphone or headphones port?

Thanks a lot!

[LiveShots]

Item 5 is the correct Port, its a micro-USB

 

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[Maureen]

Oh great! Thank you very much!!! ?

 

[LiveShots]

Do you recall what trigger you were using ?

[Maureen]

Unfortunately no!

[michelb]

1) No need to put the body in WL mode since you are using manual triggers (unless Alien Bees makes a TTL trigger for Sony that i don't know about). It could actually be a cause for failure since there was no exchange of info between trigger and body and in WL mode, the body will expect an answer from a flash with the proper connectors and if it does not get the answer it is looking for (or no answer as would be the case with manual triggers), there could be no triggering of the flash at all

2) The Sony MIS shoe ( it's official name) is different in that it has contacts at the front of the shoe on your camera body. Sometimes these connectors prevent the flash foot (or trigger foot)  from making a connection with the the central contact on the body. Sometimes you need to push as much as you can within reasonable force to ensure the central contact gets proper alignment which is not always easy to establish. Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as  standard shoe anymore ( Nikon shoe is shorter than Canon and Sony with these front connectors are a pain to use with some standard triggers) and this is often cause of erratic behavior of flash when adapting or using manual flashes from different manufacturers

 

Edited January 6, 2019 by michelb

[jeff]

Your shutter was not set on silent shooting, correct?  I ask because I never had trouble with my CyberCommander and the A7r2 (unless silent shooting)

Edited January 6, 2019 by jeff

[DanArt]

The Alien bee looks like a standard non-TTL trigger type. There should be no problem using them with your A7rii. Unless the signal is not going out