Very happy with cheap ebay optical slaves

tomtor · 03-01-2009, 08:28 AM

The last weeks I've been busy playing with off camera flashes.

I used PC-cords and splitters which worked ok, but I decided to buy some optical slaves. These are really cheap ($10 with free shipping) and I must say that I'm very pleased.

They are very sensitive, they don't need a battery and they can be used to safely trigger high voltage old flashes. You only have to get rid off the P-TTL preflash, but that easy because I use the master flash(es) in manual mode anyway. I fire the master flash with a PC-cord or with a cheap ebay radio trigger.

I'm very pleased with those ebay radio triggers too (for the longer range or if other flashes go off in the same environment), but in many setups the optical slaves are easier to use (you cannot forget to switch them off, no batteries, etc).

The optical slave unit comes in two variants, sky-3 (only hot-shoe) and sky-4 (hot-shoe AND PC-connector). The price is about the same.
I got my slaves from copijohn

Just search for sky-3 or sky-4 on ebay.

Highly recommended!

krypticide · 03-01-2009, 02:26 PM

Glad yours work well. I used the eBay radio triggers for some time, but got frustrated when the flashes sometimes wouldn't go off. I switched to Cybersyncs, and they work quite well, and are much cheaper than Pocket Wizards.

marcdsgn · 03-01-2009, 06:13 PM

Optical slaves are very handy when you have a limited number of wireless remotes and need one more flash set up. It just feeds off the light from the other flashes.

*jezza323* · 03-01-2009, 06:25 PM

i also recently bought 1 of these to play with my dads old sunpak flash with a 37v sync. works great! have to shoot with my M lenses though because it needs to have the pre flash disabled on the on-board flash (which i believe can only be done by using a manual lens)

but here is a test shot with the sunpak off to the right with a bit of old plastic from a milk bottle in front of it as a bit of a diffuser, and the onboard covered with a bit of paper (still manages to trigger the optical trigger fine though)

tomtor · 03-01-2009, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by jezza323

i also recently bought 1 of these to play with my dads old sunpak flash with a 37v sync. works great! have to shoot with my M lenses though because it needs to have the pre flash disabled on the on-board flash (which i believe can only be done by using a manual lens)

The lens need not be manual. Any lens with an aperture ring (eg an FA) will do. Just select the aperture on the ring (any setting but A) and you'll get a single full power flash from the pop up. It's a shame that the power cannot be reduced however, except by using a diffuser or some dark film...

*jezza323* · 03-01-2009, 11:35 PM

thanks for clarifying my ramblings

lol

Mike Cash · 03-02-2009, 03:27 AM

Optical slaves are cheap, require no batteries, and take up practically no room at all. I keep one in a side pocket of my camera bag at all times.

They typically operate at a range of up to 1/2 the guide number of the triggering flash.

The only drawback is if you want to use it in a place where other people are using flash. What will happen is that they will end up "borrowing" your flash and running your batteries down. It only took me one event to figure that one out.