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claimed4all

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 26, 2008
414
0
Currently I have a Point and Shoot Panasonic DMC-TZ5, which is a great camera but sometimes I would like the ability for a better flash and/or an off camera flash. So with the lack of a hotshoe I thought it was hopeless, then I discovered Slave flashes. So I have been looking at a slave unit for additional camera flash (with bracket) and/or an off camera flash (I think that would be fun to experiment with). So my question is what is a decent slave sensor and flash with a budget in mind? Is this something I could use for fun or am I throwing my money away?

I was looking at
http://www.amazon.com/Sunpak-Digital-Preflash-Cancellation-Socket/dp/B000SJR7ZY/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1WTWX5ORXB46B&colid=M1HMFL5UE7DC for a slave.
 

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,541
1,653
Redondo Beach, California
My underwater flash that I use while diving is optically triggered and it works well. The thing to watch out for is that the camera might do more than one preflash so the slave needs some control. Also you may find that the camera preflashes a different number of times depending on the mode. Mine does not preflah at all if I'm on manual exposure.


The other importent thing to know is that the slaved flash will NOT be auto exposure. Typically the camera will control the length of the flash so as to control the amount of light but the slave will just flash at 1/2 or 1/4 or whatever you've set it to. So when I'm doing underwater shots I use full manual mode on both the flash and camera. This works best. I can look at the histogram display after taking a test shoot and adjust the flash or f-stop. The slave can be used either as the main light or for fill-in flash or lighten the shadows
 
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