Vivitar 285HV + Wein peanut slave

[Swisstony10]

A couple of weeks ago I was using a multiple-light setup to shoot people in front of a backdrop at a party. I was firing a couple of Elinchrom studio heads into white brollies for the main lights, with a third head firing onto the backdrop to light it. Since I have a couple of strobes kicking around, I figured I'd hang those either side of the backdrop, just to give me a bit rim/hair lighting. The lights I use have built-in receivers for Elinchrom's own radio trigger, so I naturally have a transmitter for that, and I also have a separate receiver which I use to trigger my speedlight when I'm using that too far off-camera for a TTL cord.

I was getting a few bits and pieces for the weekend (actually, the backdrop support) from my local branch of a major kit supplier, and I happened to spot that the had Wein peanut optical triggers compatible with the Vivitar 285HV (my other/spare strobe). I figured that would be a cheap and easy way to give myself an occasional hairlight, so I added one to my order.

The info on the Wein peanut claimed that it "plugs straight into the 285HV", although I found that I had to use the PC cable that came with the flash (that could be what they meant, I'm not complaining about that), but it just refuses to fire. It's not a pre-flash issue, which can affect optical strobes, because I'm not using any preflash, the speedlight is on Manual, triggered at the same time as all the studio heads. Nothing that I fire at the peanut, no matter how close or how distant, will trigger it. Is this something that someone else has come across, or does it look like I may have a defective peanut? I can't try connecting the peanut to the Speedlight and triggering it with the Vivitar because the connector doesn't fit and I don't have a PC cable that will go between the two..

Any ideas, anybody?

Cheers,

Russ.

[inkista]

The Wein peanuts are kind of flaky. There's a whole Strobist thread about this subject. Just me, but I'd return it, and get a Sonia optical trigger from flashzebra instead.

[Swisstony10]

Genius! I've just ordered the 285HV-specific Sonia trigger - looks like it plugs straight into the Vivi, which I prefer to the idea of having it dangling on a short cable. If it works well, I'll probably have their Canon EX one too, along with the hot-shoe adaptor, so I can carry on using my spare Skyport receiver to trigger the one Elinchrom light I have that doesn't have a built-in Skyport receiver.

That said, I do love turning the slave cells on the Elinchroms on whenever I'm away from wherever I've set up, just confuse the crap out of all the people who try to sneakily use the backdrop to take some P&S snaps, and can't work out why all they get is a huge white space with an occasional beard showing.

Russ.

[111t]

i always used the wein hs slaves. it has the 1/4 x 20 threaded hole on the bottom which is nice to connect to the spigots that come with tilt/umbrella brackets.