I did a seach and didn't find a thread on this, although I know there has to be one.
I am going to be doing a shoot where a I need to use a couple of my old Minolta and Vivitar flash units (I don't want to buy more SB units or have the expense of radio units for this one shoot). I need a decent triggering unit that will trigger the legacy units while ignoring the preflashes from the SB commander unit. Any suggestions?
flash trigger question
(8 posts) (5 voices)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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I use the Cactus V5s from gadget infinity. They are pretty simple to use and cheap. The V5s have one unit that can be used as a transmitter or a receiver. You can save a little money and go with the V4s but they have a separate transmitter and receiver. The only drawback is that the flashes will have to be set manually. There is another brand that does the same thing for about the same price available through Amazon.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Find a bunch of old PC cords and cut the end that feeds into the camera off. Then, get some cheap speaker wire and wire the flash part of the PC cord to the speaker wire (basically, just extended the PC cord). Wire all your units together and then connect the camera plug to the extended speaker wires. Connect that whole mess to a Wien resistor unit (I forget what they're technically called but they stop current from running back into your camera and frying it). You could also connect that to a radio unit (phottix makes a unit that accepts standard PC cords) and have one radio unit trigger as many flashes as you wanted.
I actually have a bunch of PC to audio jack cords that I made so that I can carry spools of speaker cable rather than a mess of cord/flashes. I keep the spools all rolled up and only use what I need. It is also helpful because it allows you to only use as many of the cords as you need and is really easy to set up. If you go that route, be sure to build a 5 or 6 port female audio jack to single PC cord. The PC cords are the most expensive parts. You should be able to build this for $20-30 depending on how many units you want to trigger and how far apart they will be.
Posted 1 year ago # -
and then.............
sit down and figure out exposure
or
get some old SB600 or 800s and let CLS do it for you
reason you bought Nikon in the first place.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I have some VERY long PC cords from the old days before wireless flash. Don't want that.
I have SB600/800 flashes, but don't want to buy more just for this shoot. I do have several legacy flashes. I also don't need to sit down and figure out exposure. I know what I want to do with the manual flashes and they will just be accent lights. I'd like to use my CLS flashes for the primary lights.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I know this may sound crazy, but I had an idea so I thought I'd investigate a bit. I just tested to see if the hot shoe fires when you press the test button on an SB900. According to my tongue, it does (I didn't feel like digging out a multimeter and know that there isn't that much current running through one of these things).
My idea is to use the SB's as your remotes. For example, plug your legacies into the SB's using the PC cords. Trigger the SB's and you trigger the legacies regardless of the initial preflash.
I haven't tested this but it could be a solution. Yes, you would still need cords, but far less, and you won't need to buy any other equipment. If you do test it let me know, I have a pile of old units that I may start using again if this works.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Another idea that I haven't tested yet, but should work:
Use light triggers and shoot at a slower speed. If you shoot at 1/60 of a second, all flashes should fire. Your legacies will either fire on the preflash or the real flash. At 1/60, I wouldn't think it would matter, all your flashes would fire (I don't expect a legacy to be remotely close to being charged enough to go off a second time between preflashes and flashes).
Obviously this only works in a setting where you don't have other flashes going off.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I use CowboyStudio NPT-04, and you can't beat these for the money. You can get one transmitter and three receivers for around 50 bucks.
Posted 1 year ago #
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