Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I have been taking pictures for 14 years with my Alien Bees. No Issue. The problem I have been having lately. Is every first shot I take is way over exposed. I have looked at my EXIF data and the first shot and second or third shot is shot with the same exact settings and one may be correct. It has been so unreliable that now I have to fire two or three shots in a row to get a perfect exposure. That is ridiculous when working with toddlers. I have two cameras it is doing it with. Nikon d7000 and Nikon D7200. Like I said use to work just perfectly. Is it my cameras? I can't imagine it being both especially since the D7200 is only 1 month old.
I am using wireless Cybersync. I use both Alien bees 400 and 800. I am not over my sync speed in my camera though I highly doubt that would have anything to do with this. Any ideas would be helpful. I am ready to pull my hair out with this problem.

My first thought was your lens diaphragm is sticking or dragging causing the random over-exposure. To get even more light out of a flash, if it is turned up full, is unlikely. Only thing I could see with the flash and CyberCommander if you didn't dump the first load if you dialed down the flash output and the initial power stored was still present. Often I can tell from the sound of the pop if it was at full power or was dialed down.

Also, I had a lens that maybe got too hot (in car?) and the internal grease got onto the blades and it would sometimes stick on closing down and gave me random over-exposures. Had to send it into Nikon for cleaning and cost me about $180 and problem was solved.

Mack

I never thought it might be my lens That is interesting I will have to look into that. It was just so weird that it just started happening all the time. Thanks so much I will look into it

Your camera is not set to bracketing is it?

Also, double check the ISO in the EXIF data of improperly exposed images. Does the ISO appear in red?