How good are Optical Slave Flashes?

I intend to buy an optical slave flash (the one that detects a light pulse from built in flash in camera and triggers the flash) for my Nikon D5000.

I do not have a master flash hence looking for this inexpensive alternative.

Can anyone using such flash guide me about its Pros and Cons? Also, about the brands available in the market and the best among them?

Looking forward to your suggestions…

Answer by Kevin K
If you by a Nikon SB-600, you can set it up as a slave without buying anything else. Set the onboard flash as master, and it automatically fires the SB-600. This is still more expensive, around 200.00 for the SB-600.

I used to use Vivitar optical slaves. They work fantastic if you’re the only one firing a flash. 2 photographers working closely, and the flashes are always firing. For 200.00 you can pick up 3 flashes and optical slaves, Vivitar 5200, 5600, or 283 flashes are pretty excellent.

Here’s a shot using 3 SB-800 flashes as remotes:

http://cgipix.com/Trees_1_Landscape_Photography_Free_Photos.htm

EDIT- Sorry, thought they place the CLS in all of the cameras, one more reason not to recommend the D5000.

Answer by deep blue2
KEVIN K is WRONG!! Even if the SB600 can be used as a remote using the Nikon CLS system your D5000 does not have the this system and canNOT therefore fire the SB600 from the commander flash on board you camera! The SB600 does not have a dumb optical slave mode, so it will only work on your camera’s hotshoe!! Cameras that have the CLS ability are the D70, D80 D90, D200, D300 & D700.

A fantastic small flash will full manual control is the Yongnuo 460-II – fully manually adjustable in power output, and has two optical slave modes (one of which ignores TTL pre-flashes & one which doesn’t). It only costs around £40 on eBay. I have one which I fire wirelessly off camera using the Yongnuo RF-602 triggers – these are cheap (£27) and reliable (two things that rarely go collectively these days!) again available on eBay. The advantages of using radio triggers over optical is that they have greater range (the RF-602′s have been tested at over 150m!!), they don’t need line of sight (can fire them through walls!) and are less troublesome in bright light (outdoors).

The Yongnuo stuff is pretty excellent & very well loved in the Strobist community. If you want more info on off camera flash, suggest you check out David Leisure activity’s Strobist blog;

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

Additional well loved Strobist flashes are the Vivitar 285HV’s (have to watch the trigger voltage, some can be too high), Lumipro L160, SunPak (more models than you can shake a stick at) and older Nikon speedlights like the SB26 & SB28.

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Chateau de Haux


Image by mescon
View On Black

I visited Chateau de Haux last weekend, and met Peter Jörgensen, a sixth generation vineyard importer/exporter. This chateau is located in the Bordeaux constituency and produces some fine wine (or so I’ve heard, I know too small about the subject to be the judge of that).

Peter and his brother bought this building and made it into the Chateau de Haux in the 80′s and have since been producing wine for its shareholders only. Our company owns some shares and were by that fact allowed on the premises for a guided tour were we learned a fantastic deal of history about his family and the history of its wines.

We got to see the process first hand and finally sat down for a fine dinner in company of some fantastic storytellers. At times, it felt like listening to my grandfather at the bonfire! If you ever get the chance, go to Bordeaux!

What do you reckon Peter is thinking about, watching his vineyard from outside the gates?

(Their website URL is: www.haux.com/.)

bought the d60 after all(thank all for guiding me to extended research..)will have it in a couple of days..bought the package with both VR lenses 18-55mm and 55-200mm..but i can’t seem to find any excellent lenses..quick lenses.. capable in low light situation..i mean the
NIKON AF 50mm f/1.8D would be fantastic..but it won’t auto focus..and i dont know if i would handle that with cool results..i need low f numbers..
what do you suggest?..cheap lenses please..because i am a bit economically dead after the hold..
would it be hard to autofocus and use its full capabilities?..
will have a tripod in some night shots for sure..i am interested into super zoomed cropped low light photos with all detail as possible and noise free…been using lots of small digicams and had an ancient minolta film camera..latest was olympus c-8080..i am not useless in photos..but i would not consider me as more than an enthusiast..i want to improve skills..will i make it with manual focus?..
thank you!
thank you both for commenting!
wish i may maybe get a cheap low f numbered lens..but if i use i tripod and keep trying to focus for ever..i might get it in the end..maybe i will try the nikon 50mm..it is about a 100euro anyways..wish i may maybe get more!

you seem to know lot about photography..
check out the new question i posted under

“Infrared phtography and filters?”
(ahmm…i misspelled photography, oops)

want to hear your opinion.

thank’s a lot!
peace

Answer by zablackw
Well if your wanting to get shots in low light and quick focus speeds for things like indoor sports, a manual focus lens isn’t ideal for these type of shots. You wont be able to get things in focus in time and every tiny second counts with action shots in sports with quick movements.

The AF-S DX VR Zoom-NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED can range from $ 200.00-$ 300.00 and is a excellent lens for action shots in low light. Its practically made just for this. It even has a Vibration Reduction (VR) so you wont have to worry about getting vibration in your picture when you need to pull out the camera really quick and take a shot.

Answer by OMG, I ♥ PONIES!!1
Hey man, I thought I recognized you. Nice hold, that D60 kit. I hope you delight in it.

As for a quick lens, I’m sorry to say you’re screwed. As you know, the fastest lenses are primes, like that 50mm f/1.8. But only a few primes will autofocus on a D60. Like the Nikon 60mm f/2.8… which is a fantastic lens but completely useless for your intended purposes (since f/2.8 is not nearer than a excellent zoom lens, and at $ 570 it’s not cheaper, any.)

Manually focusing a 50mm f/1.8 with the aperture set wide open is an exercise in frustration. The viewfinder of the D60 just isn’t made for it. I’d advise public who want to try it anyway to spend an extra $ 100 on a tear prism viewfinder. See these guys if you want to go that route: http://www.katzeyeoptics.com
The only two exceptions to this rule, are:
1) if you’re subject is always more than say, 25 feet away. Looking at my own Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens, that’s about the distance for infinity focus. So in that case, you can set the focus to infinity and place it there.
2) If you have the camera mounted on a tripod and your subject is stationary. In that case, you have all the time in the world to nip the focus. And if you have all the time in the world, the shutter speed doesn’t really matter… so you might as well use your slower zoom lenses.

I don’t know what you intend to shoot, but here’s why I use my 50mm. Firstly, I use it when I want a razor thin depth of field. If you want to take a likeness where the eyes are in focus and the nose and ears are a blurry mess, this is your lens. Secondly, I use it for street photography when my zoom lens is too slow. Since I’m a bone idle bastard but, I’ll keep using my zoom lens until I have to crank the ISO beyond 1600. At that point, I’ll switch from my f/2.8 zoom at ISO 2000 to my f/1.4 fill in at ISO 500. (In this case the ISO goes down by 2 stops, the aperture goes up by two stops, and the shutter speed remains constant.) From there, I’ll start turning up the ISO again on my 50mm lens. In practical terms, this earnings that I never use my fill in at an ISO lower than 500, which is not noise-free. Here’s a couple of examples from my D200 – these pictures were not brushed up with noise ninja or anything:
f/1.8 at ISO 1000: http://www.elswhere.info/images/asia2/019_JEF0003.htm
f/2.2 at ISO 1250: http://www.elswhere.info/images/elswhere3/image0013.htm
These pictures are grainy, the white balance is shot to hell (should’ve used a custom white balance or RAW) and from a technical point of view, they’re crap. But I like them… they capture the moment and to me, *this* is what the 50mm f/1.4 was made for. For night time cityscapes and such, I’ll set the camera on a tripod and use ISO 100 with f/8.

Answer by Dr. Sam
OMG, look who’s back on the boards!

Part of my stock answer here might help you. You CAN use a non-autofocus lens on the D60 and it’s really reasonably simple. If you don’t want to trust your eye, read this:

If you check www.nikonusa.com for “AF-S” lenses, which are ALL 100% compatible with the D40, you will find 28 lenses, including 13 “VR” (vibration Reduction) lenses and one right macro lens with “VR”. There are another 25-plus lenses in the current catalog that provide all functions except autofocus as well as many (maybe dozens) “out of print” lenses that will work just as well.

Especially this part…

In addition, even if these lens will not autofocus, most of them will still give focus confirmation. From the D40 manual: “If the lens has a maximum aperture of f/5.6 of nearer, the viewfinder focus indicator can be used to authenticate whether the part of the subject in the selected focus area is in focus. After positioning the subject in the active focus area, press the shutter release button halfway and rotate the lens focusing ring until the in-focus indicator is showed.”

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