Firing Nissin Di866 MKII with Cactus TX/RX

lharby

So, sorry to ask what must be a very basic question.

Most of my equipment is Nikon analogue. I have a D70 which I use for testing purposes. 

I have a Nissin Di866 MKII which is a Canon fit. 

The cacti are talking to each other, (green and orange lights) and the connection is definitely being fired from the camera side (with the natural connection as well as via a hotshoe extension). 

But nothing seems to make the flash trigger. What mode does the flash have to be in? And is there a way to test this without firing the camera shutter? 

I also tried with a sync cable between the cactus tx and the flash, but no joy. 

I really hope someone can help. 

Antonio

The Di866 has to be in TTL mode.

You can test this by pressing the Test Button on the V6 TX unit.

Let me know if you need further assistance.

Thanks!

lharby

Thank you. 

I actually also asked the same question here: http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/71265/firing-nissin-di866-mkii-with-cactus-tx-rx

And whilst I got a very good answer, it said to fire the flash in M/Av mode. But I have tried that as well as TTL mode. Nothing seems to work. 

I think I will take the whole kit into my camera shop and see if they can figure it out, or at least see if they can test another flash that works .

Antonio

Hi @Iharby, the flash needs to be in TTL mode.

The V6 requires the contact with other hot shoe pins besides the centre pin because it is not a basic flash trigger, unlike the V5 the user on StackExchange is using, whcih only has a centre hot shoe pin.

One basic setup proccedure I forgot to ask - have you already selected the correct flash profile on the V6 set to RX mode - where the flash is mounted on?

Press the MENU button, the one beside the OK button
Scroll 3 clicks to the left: CHOOSE PROFILE
Press the OK button to highlight the selection
Scroll until you see CANON
Press OK
Scroll until you see NISSIN Di866
Press OK
Press OK again to confirm using the flash profile

Hope this helps!

lharby

Oh thank you. 

I will give this a try soon and reply with the outcome. 

I really appreciate your time.

lharby

Actually I have a V5 set, so not sure that I have access to the flash profile? 

Class A

@lharby: Your V5 triggers do not support different flash profiles.

Any flash you put on a V5 in receiver mode (Rx), should be put to a manual mode, or some other mode in which no communication with the camera is required.

A few flash models cannot be fired on with a standard manual radio trigger (like the V5), as they always require some digital communication with the camera and the V5 does not emulate this behaviour.

You can check whether your Nissin Di866 is such a flash by mounting it directly on a camera that uses a different flash system and see whether it fires when you take a shot with the camera.

If your Di866 is dedicated to Canon then putting it on your Nikon camera is a way to test whether it should work with a manual radio trigger.

If the flash fires on camera, but not on the V5 then I'm puzzled as to what is happening.

You can make test fires without using the camera at all by fully pressing the test button on the V5 transmitter. If the green confirmation light on the V5 receiver comes on, it should trigger any regular flash (the exceptions I mentioned are rather rare).

If you are not successful, try swapping out the V5 units in their receiver vs transmitter roles. Perhaps there is a hardware issue with the hot-shoe on one of the units.

Antonio

@Iharby sorry I thought I was talking in the V6 section. my bad!

In that case your flash has to be in M mode - pure basic flash triggering. 

However, there are some flash models that still require communication with camera via other hot shoe pins even when it is set the M mode. Now I hope it is not the case with the Di866...

Good luck!

lharby

Thanks everyone. I will try and test over the weekend and update on here. 

I have two hot shoe adapters and some sync cables, so I can normally get the items to talk to each other. 

lharby

Thanks for all your help guys. 

Well sad story, I took all my equipment to my local camera store and they couldn't figure out why it was not firing. So the upshot is I invested in a Nikon Speedlight in the shop and tested it there and then and it works. My wife gets to keep the Nissin as she has a Canon digital camera.