Slave flash how does it work

Off-camera flash has a number of benefits above the standard on-camera flash. As mentioned above, one benefit of off-camera flash is that it allows a photographer to move the flash further away from the camera.

That helps reduce lens flare and provides for softer light on the subject. Another benefit of using a slave flash is that it can be used without firing the master unit. This is common with low quality models. Slave flashes are a great way to avoid using the flash on your camera which can cause problems with lens flare and poor lighting. When used correctly, a slave flash can provide even lighting over a large area from a flash off-camera.

You can use slave mode to work with any brand of speedlight. All the speedlight is doing is detecting a pop of light to trigger itself. Some photographers will have their nice speedlight as their key light, but use more affordable flashes as fill light and easily trigger them with slave mode.

You can also trigger a flash in slave mode by using the pop-up flash found on your camera. The way to make the most out of the gear you have is to set the rest of your flashes without receivers to slave mode. BEWARE: Because slave mode is dependent upon the flash of another speedlight, you will need to make sure that there is a clear line of sight to the other flash. For example, the photo shoot with this car had a set of lights on the outside of the car, as well as a speedlight on the inside of the car.

With the limitations of slave mode, the flash inside the car could not be set to slave mode simply because it did not have a direct line of sight to another flash. Slave flashes are simply self-contained flash units which respond to external triggers of some kind. They're frequently used in studio situations. For example, you might have a multiple-flash setup - one flash to illuminate the subject and another unit or two to illuminate the background separately.

Many slave flashes are triggered by light: optical slaves. They have small sensors built in or attached that detect the light pulse from another flash unit and then trigger immediately themselves. Since they respond so rapidly, the time delay between the trigger flash and the slave flashes going off does not affect the exposure of the photo. The Wein Peanut, a tiny and inexpensive accessory, is a popular optical trigger that's basically compatible with most flash units out there.

Since the sensors watch for flash bursts you thus use one flash unit as the triggering flash - typically the built-in flash unit on your camera or an external unit connected to the camera's hotshoe or PC connector. Magezine Publishing Top. Login Join for Free. What is Plus Membership? Words and pictures by Peter Bargh. This is because the flash on most is only capable of illuminating a subject that's a maximum of three meters away from the camera and the light is also very directional.

You can improve things with a small accessory called a slave flash or by using a slave adapter on any detachable flashgun. How it works A slave flash works like any ordinary flashgun, so you can use one mounted on the accessory shoe of a camera or connect to a camera using a cable extension, but it also has a sensor built-in that allows it to be triggered from another flash.

Why use a slave flash You could use the slave flash to light nooks and crannies in interior shots where the on camera flash can't reach such as cupboards, alcoves, underneath arches etc. In portraiture it can be used to provide a hair or rim light for a model shoot or a side light for enhanced lighting.

You can point it up or down to graduate a background too. It can also be used as a power boost to the built-in flash when you want to shoot at a longer range. You could even use two or three for more complex lighting, but lets keep things simple for this exercise. Supporting the flash The flash won't stand up on its own, but will sit comfortably on its side or top.

Exposure Achieving the correct exposure is the most tricky part of using a slave flash. Examples Here are a couple of examples of what just one extra flash could produce: In the photograph on the left it was illuminated by direct flash.