Hotshoe accessory to fire studio flash

[Scott Tracy]

Hi, yesterday our club set up a studio night with 2 Bowens robes fired into brolly and a remote radio trigger. Having never had cause to use the A7 III hotshot I didn't realise the shoe wouldn't fire the single point trigger. Can anyone advise the correct Sony adaptor? No generic ones

 

[AlphaWorld]

I don't know if the A7III has a PC socket (stands for something other than Personal Computer: I just looked it up - it's a Prontor-Compur socket, obviously), but that's the most common way to fire external strobes (the A1 and A7RV have them, for example). If the A7 III doesn't have one, there are inexpensive little blocks you can put in the hot shoe to add a PC socket.

However, I'm surprised you couldn't fire a centre pin trigger. I know several Sony bodies will (I've done it some years back). It may be a case of setting the appropriate settings in the menus. I don't remember what the settings are called because I used a Sony-specific trigger these days, and it interfaces with the camera using the pins at the front of the hot shoe.

I think the key things are to turn off the wireless flash functionality, and run with full mechanical shutter (the A7 III cannot shoot flash on e-shutter). You'll need to be in M mode, with your shutter at flash sync speed (probably around 1/200) - adjust ISO and aperture to suit (with studio strobes, I generally use ISO 100 / f/8 with my own strobes, but it depends on the brightness of the strobes - one shoot had the person running the shoot insisting we use ISO 200 (so he didn't have to run his strobes as high!).

 

[Scott Tracy]

Thanks for that. More research needed methinks. Menus here I come !!