20D + 580EX + Sunpak 383 + Nikon SB-22 together ?

Khalid · June 3, 2006

Hi, I'm trying to find out the most inexpensive and a relatively reliable way to trigger these three flashes in an indoor setting. I cant afford the pocket wizards right now but are there other solutions which will work reliably ?
If any one has experience with this then please give me the specific parts needed to trigger the flashes.

Thanks

TristanP · June 3, 2006

Your 20D has a built-in PC jack. Your 383 should have come with a PC sync cable about 4" long. Connect the two with a PC extension and you have the main trigger taken care of. Cheap optical slaves for the other two and you're set. Just one option I could think of quickly. Not as nice as the PW, but a whole bunch cheaper.

Khalid · June 7, 2006

Thanks Tistan
I'll try that, although I wanted to be able to use my 580 as the master and the other two as slaves. Using optical slaves I will probably have to give up on ETTL of the 580.
-Khalid

TristanP wrote:

Your 20D has a built-in PC jack. Your 383 should have come with a PC sync cable about 4" long. Connect the two with a PC extension and you have the main trigger taken care of. Cheap optical slaves for the other two and you're set. Just one option I could think of quickly. Not as nice as the PW, but a whole bunch cheaper.

Shay Stephens · June 7, 2006

Wireless triggering with ettl is not a simple task to be sure (read, not gonna be cheap). If you just need to trigger a flash, that can be done fairly simply and cheaply. As mentioned, optical slaves will work, though they tend to be less reliable than radio triggers. But if cost is paramount right now, then optical triggers are the way to go.

If your remote flash has a hotshoe (e.g. Sunpak 383), give one of these a try:
(edit) doh! direct linking is not working, so go here:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com
and in the search box (upper left corner), type in: WEHS

Khalid · June 9, 2006

Shay Stephens wrote:

Wireless triggering with ettl is not a simple task to be sure (read, not gonna be cheap). If you just need to trigger a flash, that can be done fairly simply and cheaply. As mentioned, optical slaves will work, though they tend to be less reliable than radio triggers. But if cost is paramount right now, then optical triggers are the way to go.

If your remote flash has a hotshoe (e.g. Sunpak 383), give one of these a try:
(edit) doh! direct linking is not working, so go here:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com
and in the search box (upper left corner), type in: WEHS

Thanks Shay, the Wein optical slaves look like a good solution. I see that there are some which are designed to ignore the preflash as well. Now I wonder if I can put one on 580EX and another on the 383 and then trigger them (both off camera) via just my built-in on camera flash ?
I guess I'll settle on using the non-ETTL for now as long as I get dual off camera flashes to trigger wirelessly.
Thanks,
-Khalid

jamesl · June 14, 2006

Khalid wrote:

Hi, I'm trying to find out the most inexpensive and a relatively reliable way to trigger these three flashes in an indoor setting. I cant afford the pocket wizards right now but are there other solutions which will work reliably ?
If any one has experience with this then please give me the specific parts needed to trigger the flashes.

Thanks

Like Shay said, having ETTL wireless isn't cheap. I use an ST-E2
wireless transmitter that sits on my hotshoe. It controls 2 580-EX
flashes that are on lightstands. I then use a sync cord to fire a
Promaster flash that sits on top of my camera bracket. The
Promaster is manual, but works pretty well. Lots of power.

James

Khalid · June 14, 2006

jamesl wrote:

Like Shay said, having ETTL wireless isn't cheap. I use an ST-E2
wireless transmitter that sits on my hotshoe. It controls 2 580-EX
flashes that are on lightstands. I then use a sync cord to fire a
Promaster flash that sits on top of my camera bracket. The
Promaster is manual, but works pretty well. Lots of power.

James

I've been researching this a lot and I'm leaning towards just buying a Canon 430EX flash and then use my 580EX as a master to control the 430EX off camera. The 430EX is about $250 as opposed to the ST-E2 which is about $210. Once I get more experience with this setup (one on-camera, one off-camera flash) I'll buy the ST-E2 or yet another Speedlight. But spending 60 bucks on a Wein optical slave which can ignore the pre-flash seems like a interim solution only ... plus with 430EX I get to keep the ETTL-II.
Thanks for your reply,
-Khalid

20D + 580EX + Sunpak 383 + Nikon SB-22 together ?

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