Please help a lighting newbie

[Kmacbee]

Hi All,
I am new to DPS forums and to using any sort of off-camera flash.
I am having a problem with my Speedlite and an electronic flash slave and hoping someone can help. I have a Canon EOS Digital Rebel and a Speedlite 430EXII. Not having enough funds for a true studio flash setup, I purchased a little electronic flash slave to fire the Speedilte and use with a shoot-through umbrella.
I am using my on-camera flash to trigger the speedilte. Here is the problem. When I turn on the speedlite and use my camera, it works right away in just the way I was hoping. However, once the pilot light on the speedilte comes back on, the speedlite will not fire a second time. If I cycle the power on the speedlite, then it will fire again. But I cannot do the shoot next week having to cycle the power every time I use the speedlite.
I have tried the following to solve my problem:
Put fresh batteries in the speedlite
Tried both ETTL and manual modes on the speedlite
Tried both manual and various other modes on my camera
Does anyone have any thoughts on what is going on here?
Thanks in advance!
Karen

[inkista]

As long as you know it's not an issue of the batteries or waiting for the flash to recycle, my guess is the culprit is the "little electronic slave" flash.

Are we talking about an optical slave that you plug into the 430EX somehow? Can you give us a link or put up a picture of this slave? I only know of one brand of optical slaves that works well with Canon EXs (Sonia, the ones with the green base), and those will only work if you can turn off eTTL pre-flashes.

And not knowing which Canon dRebel you have, I can't tell you if your pop-up flash can be switched into Manual mode or not (I think only the 600D's can; just as only the 600D's pop-up flash can be used as a master unit to trigger the 430EX II in slave mode).

Get radio triggers: Cactus V5s or Yongnuo RF-602s. They'll work better, have better range, and won't require line-of-sight. They also won't be set off by any random stranger with a P&S flash turned on.

[zona5101]

can you post a link to the slave you are using?

[Kmacbee]

Flashthingy1.jpg
This is the item I have attached to the speedlite.
Oh and my camera is the EOS Rebel XT.

[inkista]

Yeah, I think that's the culprit. The XT's pop-up flash cannot be put into Manual to trigger one of those.

A set of Cactus V5s is probably going to be your best bet. If that's too expensive, you could go for Yongnuo RF-602s, but they're not quite as nice.

[zona5101]

read this link...
first day with the 430EX flash: disappointment! - Photo.net Canon EOS Forum

looks like optical slaves and canon flashes are a no-go.

[inkista]

Yup. Even if the 350D's pop-up could be put into Manual, chances are the slave still wouldn't work. There were lots of reports of the Wein peanut slaves not working, either. As I posted above, the only ones I've found that worked with Canon EXs are the Sonia green-base ones, and they can't ignore a preflash and require a hotshoe adapter, so are of limited use.

There are reasons I own an SB-26 and a YN-560. (One of them being the Powershot S90 ). I love dumb optical slaves, but getting them to work with an EX or a dSLR pop-up is not easy.

[Kmacbee]

Thanks for the advice and the links. Glad to discover that it is the equipment and not the photographer and you've given me a couple of good solutions.