Hello everyone,

A colleague of mine is having problems with her Backscatter Mini Flash-1 and her new AOI housing for the Sony A7CII.

I know that the MF-1 can be quite finicky when it comes to fiber optics, and problems are often related to the cable. I experienced this myself with my MF-1 and the manual Nauticam Sony trigger. However, I eventually found two cables with which the MF-1 almost always worked.

My colleague is now having nothing but trouble with her new AOI housing for the Sony A7CII and the trigger. She has tried countless different fiber optic cables. Sometimes the MF-1 seems to work, and other times it doesn't. The INON flashes she still has work without any problems with all cables. The trigger is always in manual mode (WL ON).

Could it be that the older MF-1 flashes are causing even more problems with the newer triggers? It worked perfectly with a TRT trigger I had previously used in a different enclosure.

Or does anyone else have any ideas? I'm meeting with her again tomorrow and will take another look. And I think it would be best if she also asked Backscatter directly. But collective wisdom is usually even more helpful!

Thanks in advance for any feedback,

Tino

2 hours ago, Tino Dietsche said:

Hello everyone,

A colleague of mine is having problems with her Backscatter Mini Flash-1 and her new AOI housing for the Sony A7CII.

I know that the MF-1 can be quite finicky when it comes to fiber optics, and problems are often related to the cable. I experienced this myself with my MF-1 and the manual Nauticam Sony trigger. However, I eventually found two cables with which the MF-1 almost always worked.

My colleague is now having nothing but trouble with her new AOI housing for the Sony A7CII and the trigger. She has tried countless different fiber optic cables. Sometimes the MF-1 seems to work, and other times it doesn't. The INON flashes she still has work without any problems with all cables. The trigger is always in manual mode (WL ON).

Could it be that the older MF-1 flashes are causing even more problems with the newer triggers? It worked perfectly with a TRT trigger I had previously used in a different enclosure.

Or does anyone else have any ideas? I'm meeting with her again tomorrow and will take another look. And I think it would be best if she also asked Backscatter directly. But collective wisdom is usually even more helpful!

Thanks in advance for any feedback,

Tino

INON strobes have very sensitive fibre optic receivers, so triggering them tends to be very easy. to test you could try placing the fibre optic port directly over the trigger port on the housing. Also check the housing port by looking into it and triggering to see if seems bright or not, you could perhaps compare brightness to the TRT trigger. You say that it used to work with the TRT trigger, does it still work with that trigger? It's possible for example the LEDs are not well aligned on the housing ports.

The AOI trigger (at least the Olympus one) is IR based, not much brightness to see. I have had NO issues with the AOI and the MF1

Bill

5 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

INON strobes have very sensitive fibre optic receivers, so triggering them tends to be very easy. to test you could try placing the fibre optic port directly over the trigger port on the housing. Also check the housing port by looking into it and triggering to see if seems bright or not, you could perhaps compare brightness to the TRT trigger. You say that it used to work with the TRT trigger, does it still work with that trigger? It's possible for example the LEDs are not well aligned on the housing ports.

the ==

Thanks for your feedback. My colleague and I have now tried out various cables and also tested the setup with another MF-1. The conclusion of the tests is clear: the MF-1 is really sensitive when it comes to the fiber optic cable and can't handle any connection problems.

We tested with three cameras and two triggers (Backscatter and AOI). Both triggers use IR light. We'll also run another test with an older TRT.

It looks like my colleague's MF-1 might have some other issue. She'll contact Backscatter directly.

I think she'll probably get a new flash for macro photography, either the Backscatter Mini Flash 3 or the AOI UCS-Q1i Ultra.

Which one would you recommend in her situation?

Thanks for your feedbacks,
Tino

Did you try cleaning the optical port with a q-tip?

The MF-2/MF-3 strobes are a big improvement over the MF-1 in almost every way. Very reliable and functional.

1 hour ago, Dave_Hicks said:

Did you try cleaning the optical port with a q-tip?

The MF-2/MF-3 strobes are a big improvement over the MF-1 in almost every way. Very reliable and functional.

Yes, she did that, but unfortunately, it didn't really help.

The MF-1 is known for its sensitivity issues anyway. I had similar problems when the MF-1 first came out, even with the old Nauticam trigger for Sony. The cable had to be top-notch, and it didn't take much for it to start acting up. I then got an MF-2 as a replacement, and the problems disappeared.

I think the combination of the new trigger and the MF-1's relatively low sensitivity is causing the problems here. I'm pretty sure the flash itself isn't working quite right anymore either. She used it quite a lot. Let's see what Backscatter has to say about it.

Just get an MF-2 or 3. They are much better while sharing what was great in the Miniflash form factor.

For new strobes I vote for AOI, there is a very neat new snoot for the AOI that has a variable iris, not little sliding plastic bits (but no star or heart😃)

Bill