Optically fire flash as slave

[DeonHolt]

Hi all and thank you for your help.

Is it possible to optically fire my Canon 550EX with my onboard flash of my 7D? I want to use my 550 as a slave unit. I have tried many possible settings no success.
Regards,

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

no, not directly... you can buy a third party slave cell adapter for the hot shoe

(or did you mean the master/slave iR triggering?)

[Chris F]

Deon I am not impressed with the iR (infra red) linking.

I bought an extra flash to be used purely as a remote/kicker flash. Even in the shop we got more miss fires than hits with the Canon set of flashes.

We then tried an optical trigger - the light from the primary flash sets of this trigger, with the secondary flash clipped onto the trigger. Much better hit rate.


off course any other flash in the area will also set it off. but for my use a lot better than the iR trigger. Also the pre-flash for red eye reduction, and E-TTL, will also trigger it.


the way I understand it your next step is third party wireless remotes. the more functions and reliablility you want the higher the price, typically from R500 to over 1k. The ultimate seems to be the Pocket wizerds, at about 5k for one sender and one receiver.

[DeonHolt]

(or did you mean the master/slave iR triggering?)

Hi Sean. No, you understood correctly. My elinchroms have an "optical eye" which sees when another flash is firing and that triggers it to also flash. I was hoping to use my elinchroms to optically (not iR) trigger my Canon 550. Now it seems to me I need to have it the other way around. I do have 3rd party remote triggers for my flash.

Thanx Chris, also for your reply. I have read that iR is not that reliable and that photographers opt to go with remote tranceivers.

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

Deon,

I use Nissin 866's if I need to do what you do (I have three of them I hide in various places for interrior shoots, or three I stack together in my giant umbrella) Pretty cheap and has not failed me yet!

The remote triggers I use is the Pocketwizard plusII's and it works out to about R3400 for two triggers. I use these to trigger anything outdoor to indoor (putting flash units outside the window, for instance) and to get rid of wires, or to trigger a few 580EX II's

The 600EX RT units will handle all of that internally - can't wait!

[Chris F]

Sean bit off topic - If you fit a 270EX II on a pocket wizerd tranciever, is the flash output adjustable ? (or is this little Canon Flash too basic for these fancy controllers )


I bought it as a little kicker light, but now wondering just how much I can get out of this baby. My two 680's will be my main flashes.

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

Chris, do you mean manually adjustable or transfer TTL information?

[Chris F]

The idea is to get the set of pocket wizerds to make all three fully adjustable.

I know the 680's can by adjusted on the flash as well. But the 270 only has slave and on settings, any other way to adjust it manually ?

[Trevor Ives]

The 600EX RT units will handle all of that internally - can't wait!

Listened to Syl Arena on TwitPhoto... These sound lovely. And mucho dinero as well...

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

The idea is to get the set of pocket wizerds to make all three fully adjustable.

I know the 680's can by adjusted on the flash as well. But the 270 only has slave and on settings, any other way to adjust it manually ?

Ah... hmm no, not really... you can work around it by using TTL triggers and then using the one PW unit to "fake" the TTL settings, but honestly, that will most probably cost more to rig and set up than just buying an 866 or 622 Nissin flash

[Chris F]

Thanks for confirming that.


Will just use it as a kicker then, with the optic trigger. Possibly play with the white diffuser covers to dim it a bit if needed.

But yes, next on the list is a set of pocket wizerds ,,,, well that is after the pc (which is happening today).

[vlooi]

From experience, optically fired flashes, whether it's a speedlight or studio strobe like Elinchrom with built-in optic. If using two or more lights, the timing seems to be not in sync. Another BIG problem, I do a lot of events where multiple lights are sometimes necessary, if using an optic slave trigger is a no-go. Every 9/10 people owns a digital camera which triggers the built in flash who wants to capture little Johnny on the stage, which in turn triggers YOURS! So when you actually see the perfect moment, some of those peanuts pre-triggers your lights and you sit with the dark image! IMO go for radio triggers, Phottix or Pocket Wizards (Both available in TTL options). Another option, buy another Canon speedlight...One as Master and the other as slave.

[walterpike]

I picked up a phottix strato ii set few days back very fine. But I have fired SB 800 and SB 900 optically with the flash from the studio strobe no problem.