Small Challenge with using strobes with a speedlight

[rcooper102]

Hey so I have 2 strobes and an SB600 speedlight. I want to fire all 3, however, since I have to use a hot-shoe PC jack for my strobes I cannot pop up the built in flash so I can remotely fire the SB600. Is there an easy (and economical) way I can fire all 3?

I did a search and and found one thread talking about how it is really hard and you need all sorts of specialized custom gear to fire speedlights and strobes together but that doesn't seem right to me?

thx!

[scootermcq]

Originally Posted by rcooper102

Hey so I have 2 strobes and an SB600 speedlight. I want to fire all 3, however, since I have to use a hot-shoe PC jack for my strobes I cannot pop up the built in flash so I can remotely fire the SB600. Is there an easy (and economical) way I can fire all 3?

I did a search and and found one thread talking about how it is really hard and you need all sorts of specialized custom gear to fire speedlights and strobes together but that doesn't seem right to me?

thx!

Any wireless trigger will fire the SB600 in manual mode. Just get 3 triggers. 2 plug into the monolights and as long as the triggers have a hotshoe mount, you put the sb600 on the hotshoe on manual mode and you are good to go.

[Dajuan]

Might you be able to trigger all three with a "peanut" set, or something similar?

[dalmorloson]

I just got off the gadgetinfinity site where I ordered the new Cactus v5 triggers. They are now tranceivers vs the old one transmitter and x amount of recivers. Each unit can be a transmitter or reciever.
I just recieved my speedlite and strobe in the mail yesterday and had a similar problem as you face. I am new to all this stuff. I wanted to fire both off camera but didn't have the gear to do it. I put the speedlite on camera and set the strobe as a slave to fire when the speedlight went off (worked fine).
You can also get hotshoe universal adapters (check strobist lighting 101)

[inkista]

It's always kind of hard to mix TTL and manual triggering schemes together. So, you want to trigger the SB-600 manually, rather than through CLS in this situation. Your main issue comes from the fact that the SB-600 has no PC port.

You could get a hotshoe-to-PC adapter for the SB-600, and then find a way to split your PC sync cable signal, or plug in a dumb optical slave. (The Wein peanuts sometimes have issues. I've had good luck with the Sonia Canon-compatible ones, though).

But cheap radio triggers are always another option (although in this situation, you'll also need to purchase receivers for the studio strobes). But with the Cactus V5s or Yongnuo RF-602s, a four-unit transceiver set is still a pretty small cost (V5s: $120, 602s: $72), and will free you from being tethered, and there are no line of site issues as with optical slaves.

Right now, I'd say the V5s are the better buy: more features, locking shoe, no weird batteries, and transceiver units. And now the Cactus triggers are finally 2.4GHz and can double as shutter remotes (which were the main selling points on the RF-602s).

[timiroberts]

If you're already using the PC cord to fire the strobes, just set your SB600 to Slave mode and use the optical trigger to fire it when the strobes go off.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by timiroberts

If you're already using the PC cord to fire the strobes, just set your SB600 to Slave mode and use the optical trigger to fire it when the strobes go off.

That won't work. The "Slave" mode on the SB-600 is CLS--the strobes don't speak it. It will not work from a manual flash burst--it needs that near-infrared proprietary morse-code flashing. For a single manual burst to trigger the SB-600, you need SU-4 mode (dumb optical slave mode), and unfortunately, the SB-600 doesn't have it (only the SB-700/800/900 does). You'd have to add an optical slave to the foot of the SB-600 (no PC port, either), and at that point, you're limited by line-of-sight. Assuming you can find one that works with the SB-600 (even FlashZebra doesn't carry one that works with the SB-600, unless you hack a sync port into the flash yourself.)

Radio triggers seem to come out ahead at that point.