[Summerleft]

Looking at getting a flash unit now ,OH has kindly given me some bits to sell to fund one, have found the FL36 but i found my old post and was recommended the vivitar 283 but then reading about voltage it says I need a slave to keep it seperate from the camera and that will stop any problems occuring


So whats a slave and would it work?

Or would I be better with the FL36 ? ideally i would get the Olympus one but financially Im on a budget

[Dabhand16]

A slave trigger is like a table tennis ball - sometimes half black - that plugs into the slave flash unit. It fires the slave flash when it detects the main flash (controlled by the camera) firing. The main flash can be the on-board flash or one directly connected to the camera either on the hot shoe, or by a sync cord.

If using the on-board flash, make sure that the red-eye reduction is switched off, or else this will fire the slave and not the actual main flash discharge.

Some cameras also use infa-red or radio transmissions to control slave flash units that have to have a matching system.

[silkstone]

The flashgun has something called a 'trigger voltage' - you can measure it when the gun is turned on by putting a voltmeter between the central pin on the flashgun shoe and the metal strip along the edge of the shoe. On modern flashguns this is usually less than 6 volts, but on some old guns it could be 200 volts or more, and this will fry the electronics in many cameras today.

The Vivitar 283 is especially variable with different generations having a voltage anywhere between 5V and 600V. One way around the problem is to fire the flash remotely as a slave, rather than fitting it to the camera hotshoe where it could do lots of damage.

See this for more details of trigger voltages on different flashguns.

Personally I'd go for a modern gun which I could safely connect to the hotshoe, but it's your call.

[traer]

i my main line of photography, you will be hard pushed to find me with less than 3 slaves or using less than 2. Without these flashes, everything would be so flat... what i do suggest is getting a trigger and receiver, optical slaves aren't as good because they work only in line of site and other peoples flashes set them off. The ebay ones have never failed me. you get 2 receivers and a trigger for around £30 from hong kong including delivery. Although, if i had the money, pocket wizards would be 'the business'