Help troubleshooting multi-flash problem: double images

I hope someone can help me. I just spent two nights photographing screech owls bringing food to nestlings. I used a Phototrap that triggered 3 Nikon SB28 flashes on manual 1/8 power. About a third of my images were ruined by ghosting: double images that were just out of register.
Obviously since this is at night, the ghosting is not due to ambient light.
I think the problem is that there is at least one flash firing earlier or later than the other two, but that is just a guess.
Some more specifics: The phototrap was connected to an iShoot radio transmitter which then triggered  iShoot receivers attached to each flash. I had 2 Nikon D800s with ProMaster intervalometers taking 1 min exposures for 4 hours. The owls were returning about every 30 minutes or so. I had fresh batteries in all equipment. The double exposures seemed to occur randomly during the shooting.
Ethical note: Although this setup allows unmanned photography, I stayed in the area to monitor for equipment problems (I had one project where the flashes started firing repeatedly for no reason--certainly a high risk for nest abandonment) and to monitor owl response to setup. I was prepared to abort if owls did not accept situation.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? How did you solve it? Could those who use multiflash for birds in flight give me some recommendations for reliable wireless triggers for  multiflash? Any suggestions, recommendations, or advice would be greatly appreciated. It is quite frustrating when some of your best images are ruined in this way.

I've also had the problem sometimes with daylight multiflash images of bluebirds, chickadees, wrens, prothonotary warblers and great crested flycatchers, but I always assumed the ghosting was due to ambient light. Now I'm not so sure. This is my first night use of multiflash on owls. I did not expect to have this problem.

Alan Murphy was having exactly the same problem using the same set-up. You might contact him to see if he ever found the solution.

Thanks EJ. Hopefully Alan Murphy will chime in here. If not, I'll send him an email.

The iShoot triggers fared poorly when he was using them at the Alamo workshop. Same issues - irregular triggering, ghost images, delayed (or not at all) triggering. I worked with Alan to get him the solution for his workshop.

These are subject to FCC part 20 -- and as such are susceptible to being triggered by other RF environment issues.

You will have to go to a wired solution, or move to a better set of triggers (I use Pcoketwizard and have not experienced such problems as Alan has)
Don

Don Nelson wrote:The iShoot triggers fared poorly when he was using them at the Alamo workshop.  Same issues - irregular triggering, ghost images, delayed (or not at all) triggering. I worked with Alan to get him the solution for his workshop.  

These are subject to FCC part 20 -- and as such are susceptible to being triggered by other RF environment issues.  

You will have to go to a wired solution, or move to a better set of triggers (I use Pcoketwizard and have not experienced such problems as Alan has)
Don

Thanks Don. What solution did you and Alan work out at the Alamo workshop? I plan on photographing the owls again this weekend and am looking for options. One that I am considering is to use an iShoot receiver on one flash and hardwire the other two with Nikon flash cords. The beam tripper does consistently fire the flashes. It just appears that they are not in sync with each other. The hard wired flashes would be just a temporary fix though. I need wireless triggering for flash placement flexibility, and to keep me from tripping over wires and toppling equipment.
Again, thanks for the response.

Ed
For Alan's workshop, he used a setup for hummingbirds with 3 flashes each for 2 people for a total of 6 flashes (so 2 ishoot systems on separate frequencies). It did not work well, even with just one person using it for the same issues you had with iShoot. While ishoot is a financially attractive cheap solution, it seems you are now one of several people that I know that have had your experience with ghosting and/or misfires using that system. YMMV depending on the local RF environment (see FCC part 20) and the variability of each of the ishoot units.

For Hummingbirds, my advice to Alan was a wired sytem (easy to setup with flash cords, etc.) with only the camera-to-wired being a RF flash trigger (in this case not ishoot) to make it easy for different camera makes to access the flash system.

For owls leaving the nest with trigger system, you might want to do similar with wired since the flashes will be near the box/nest. If wired, be certain to seal all the connections if rain or dew is expected -- hardware stores sell self-fusing rubber tape which you just stretch to cover the connections as a wrap, and I find a clear ziplock can cover the flash...upside down bag of course, but sealed at bottom with a tiewrap so it stays on.

An alternative I use would be to put a high quality RF solution with a receiver at each flash(for me I won't use iSHOOT). I've used Pocketwizard multimax, pocketwizared Plus III and Phottix Odin in this configuration with no such problems. The multimaxes have the advantage that you can delay the strobe firing to tune the shutter timing to the camera body (the 1DX shutter timing is quite different than the MarkIV, 7D2, and 5D3) -- so you can tune the shutter delay so you don't get the partially black frame at 1/250th or 1/200th (an effect you'd normally fix by just shifting down to 1/60th etc but then you need to watch the non-flash light intensity for hummingbirds; not an issue with nighttime owls).

You can contact me offline through email for more discussion.

I emailed Alan Murphy and he was kind enough to reply right away. As EJ mentioned, Alan's had the same problem and he felt it was due to the iShoot triggers. He is now simply hard-wiring his flashes together. I really want a wireless trigger system. I was photographing the owls about 75 feet out in a swamp in 2-3 feet of water, and two of the flashes were about 8 feet apart. I really don't want to risk catching or tripping on cords and possibly toppling equipment into the water.
Still looking for suggestions from those who have photographed owls or bats at night with the Phototrap and multiple flashes.

Hi, Ed. I photograph bats pretty frequently in Costa Rica with the Range IR and multiple flashes. I use my Phottix Strato transmitter/receivers to trigger them, just as I do with my hummingbird setups. I've never had issues. Here's a bat example:

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs19 ... 09438.html

Cheers,
Greg

"Still looking for suggestions from those who have photographed owls or bats at night with the Phototrap and multiple flashes."

You must have missed this one -- it is wireless:

An alternative I use would be to put a high quality RF solution with a receiver at each flash(for me I won't use iSHOOT). I've used Pocketwizard multimax, pocketwizared Plus III and Phottix Odin in this configuration with no such problems.

Greg,
Thank you for the info. I've been researching wireless triggers online and narrowed my tentative choices down to the Phottix Atlas ii and the Phottix Stratos. I want to find the most reasonably priced product [such as the Stratos)that will work for me. Obviously, I made a mistake in buying the iShoot transmitter/receivers. The price was great. They just didn't work well enough.

Don Nelson wrote:"Still looking for suggestions from those who have photographed owls or bats at night with the Phototrap and multiple flashes."

You must have missed this one -- it is wireless:

An alternative I use would be to put a high quality RF solution with a receiver at each flash(for me I won't use iSHOOT). I've used Pocketwizard multimax, pocketwizared Plus III and Phottix Odin in this configuration with no such problems.

Don,  I really appreciate your help and advice and didn't intend to discount your suggestions. The iShoot product was not good enough (about $25 for the setup I used). I'm sure the products you mentioned would work great, but they are more than I want to pay ($530 or more for an equivalent setup) and have features I don't really need. I was hoping others would chime in products that had worked for them that were intermediate in price.

Hi, Ed. Sure, my pleasure. I don't know the Atlas. I know that Joe McDonald uses the Phottix Ares and has been happy with them. I can say, however, from a few years of experience that the Stratos definitely work well. Obviously they don't support TTL or HSS but that's not an issue for what you're shooting, as you know.

Cheers,
Greg