Retra Pro X, S-turtle trigger, Sony A7RIV

Hi

Looking for help from anyone using the S-Turtle smart trigger on a Sony A7 series, specifically I have the A7RIV with Retra Pro X strobes.

I have two problems:

1. The trigger uses a ‘smart connection’ (not the dumb firing method), so when I switch it on the camera automatically goes to Live View Off mode. This negates a big benefit of a mirrorless camera as it is no longer WYSIWYG . E.g if I want to shoot macro using just torches, the view is blown out and it’s impossible to see the subject to get accurate focus.

2. I can’t get a shutter speed higher than 1/250. As soon as the trigger is turned on (experimented on land with housing open) it immediately limits me to the flash sync limit of 1/250. Yet the combination trigger and strobe should be capable of high speed sync?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

The problem occurs because the camera assumes a strobe has been attached and this causes it to activate the flash sync limit. One way around it if the trigger and flash are high speed sync capable you can turn on high speed sync.  You might be able to shoot a little higher shutter speed then the 1/250 sync with the trigger, but ultimately are limited by the camera shutter characteristics, as the shutter speed gets faster there is an increasing amount of the frame that does not receive flash as the shutter curtain has started closing.

As for the display change when you connect strobes you want a mode that shows a balanced view that is not WYSIWYG as it is often too dark to see much if shooting with strobes.

If you want to switch from using strobes to ambient using torches perhaps you might be able to store a different preset mode where the flash is turned off in the menus or however you can do it from the menus that you can switch to without menu diving. 

Hi Hermit Crab,

Happy to join the discussion to provide some help but also to ask a few questions.

Regarding the Live View mode. As you might know, there are 2 options for the Live View Display : Setting Effect On and Off.  As you know, as soon as a strobe is connected (land and underwater), the camera goes into Flash mode. And i personally appreciate in Wide Angle  that the Live View in not blacked as i shoot mostly in Manual. On the contrary, in TTL mode, i want to see live view efect off also in Macro. 

Regarding HSS : the Retra Pro X have and setting for HSS. Switiching to it from TTL will all shitter speed shorter  than 1/250th

My question : so far how is your experience in TTL mode with the Retra and the S-Turtle? Are you happy with its accuracy (S-Turtle)?

Eric

I've been using the S-turtle trigger on my Sony A7RIV with Retra Pros for a couple of years.  To enable HSS shooting you have to:

1.    Set your Retra strobe to HSS mode; and
2.    Set Wireless Flash on your camera to On.  This setting is found in the Flash menu on the A7RIV (Menu Set 1, Page 11/15).  Once this is done you will only be able to shoot in manual mode but will be able to shoot at shutter speeds faster than 1/250

This won't be very helpful for MS600, but I thought that I'd leave a note for users of Sony's more recent cameras (A1's and A7mk4's at the moment) to say that you have an additional Live View option called "Exposure Effect" which is really useful.

You can find this setting under the Under Live View Dispay Settings submenu. Because I shoot my strobes (and camera) in full manual I set it to "Exposure Setting Only", which gives me a Live View based purely on natural light and allows me to expose my (wide angle) background blues perfectly. I must admit though that for Macro shooting with strobes I turn Live View off as I tend to have a small aperture and the viewfinder image ends up being far too dark to see.

On the A1 (and I assume A7mk4), having the S-Turtle smart trigger connected doesn't change Live View settings at all as far as I've noticed.

Sorry this doesn't directly apply to you MS600, but I thought I'd mention it in case owners of the newer Sony cameras stumbled upon this post.

Shane