How to use a flash slave unit....?

Donnie

Donnie

Suspended / Banned
Messages
7,027
Name
Paul
Edit My Images
No
Right all, wanting to have a play with some flashes and money being tight have so far managed to get a sigma 500 flashgun and an old centon flashgun too.

The sigma already has a slave sensor built into it for off camera flash but I have bought one of those small optical slave sensors to go on the hotshoe of the centon to allow use of that too.

However, it's arrived today, (the slave unit) and doesn't seem to be working at all so I'm wondering if it's not working or me being thick??

Ive connected each flash in turn to the unit and flashed the other one at it but the other doesn't flash :shrug: as I would think it should?

So is there a particular way I should do this, when it's connected I make sure Im using manual on the flash.....

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.
 
THis may sound stupid, but its the slave unit on the flash hotshot the right way round?
 
It would help to know which type of optical slave you have....Seagull, Hama, Wien etc as there are some peculiarities with each. Some are set to ignore the first flash (it assumes it to be the metering flash) and fire on the second. Others have opto-couplers that need a minimum of 4v trigger.
It's certainly the case that each type is not compatible with certain flash heads.

Bob
 
Thanks lads for the replies so far.

And yes it is facing the right way LOL.

Bob it's the same as the Seagull ones, though no pc socket and no obvious make on it at all. I managed to discover that it's not seemingly compatible with canon flashes and i presume the sigma one as its canon specific, not a big deal as it has an inbuilt slave anyway but swas hoping it'd work with the centon :-/
 
Donnie said:
Thanks lads for the replies so far.

And yes it is facing the right way LOL.

Bob it's the same as the Seagull ones, though no pc socket and no obvious make on it at all. I managed to discover that it's not seemingly compatible with canon flashes and i presume the sigma one as its canon specific, not a big deal as it has an inbuilt slave anyway but swas hoping it'd work with the centon :-/
Click to expand...

The problem with Canon guns is specific to Canon I think. To do with residual voltage sitting in the foot after the flash has fired.

Easy enough to check - switch off the flash, switch on again and it will then fire once off the slave, but not again and until you repeat the off/on procedure.

I've got a couple of slaves that get around this (Sonia) but regular ones are affected.

Edit: Sonia slaves from Colinsfoto http://www.colinsfoto.com/Optical_flash_slave/cat43953_47721.aspx
 
Last edited:
When you say it doesn't flash as you think it should, do you mean it does flah but not at the right time when taking a photo?. I had that problem, when I tested it, it seemed to work OK, but on a picture it did not give the expected result, this I figured out was due to the preflash of the main unit triggering the optically triggered flash before the shutter operated.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top