SB800 Master/Vivitar 285 slave?

I would like to use my SB800 mounted on my Nikon D100 as a master and

my Vivitar 285 as a slave. My objective is just to learn how to do

this. I've read the manuals and I can't find an answer. It could be

due to the fact that I am so new to this aspect of photography that

I'm not looking in the right places. Will the fact that my Nikon

D100 doesn't support CLS on the SB800 prohibit me from doing this?

Any information or pointers to information would be much appreciated.

 

- Anna

Anna-- What you have to keep in mind is that the SB800 is a very modern flash with all sorts of electronic capabilities, and the Vivitar 285 is a very basic flash with a minimum of technological bells and whistles.

 

If you want to use the 285 as a slave, you must first attach a slave sensor to it. It does not have one of its own built into it, like the SB800. However, in doing so you will run into another problem: under many conditions, the SB800 will fire a pre-flash before the shutter opens and it fires the main flash. Using a common slave sensor on the 285, it will read the pre-flash, pop off before the main flash, and add nothing to the exposure. There are various special slave sensors you can purchase, however, that are supposed to get around this problem.

 

Under NO conditions will the 285 be able to function as a TTL slave, either wired or wireless. Sophisticated circuitry is required for that, and the 285 does not have anything like that.

 

It MAY be possible to use one of the auto settings to get a ballpark fill-flash effect when used with another flash. I used to do that a lot on wedding shoots using one 285 on-camera and another hand-held by an assistant. However, that takes a lot of planning, experimentation, and experience, and I wouldn't use it with anything other than print film, which has a lot of exposure latatude.

 

I'm afraid that the only way you would be able to RELIABLY use those two flashes together is by setting both of them on manual, and either using a flash meter to determine exposure or by trial and error using the readout on the back of the camera.

 

Best of luck, and happy shooting. -BC-

Bill - thanks. That was very helpful!

I was trying to do the same thing with my 20d and Sigma 500 DG super and a Vivitar 283

slave. The 283 would fire with a Wein peanut but it seemed to add nothing. I suppose after

reading the answer here that the Sigma Flash also must be firing a preflash.

Is this the case here too?

 

Thanks!

Yeh, that SB-800 manual isn't the easiest to reference or follow. Besides, I'm too lazy to read instructions.

 

Anna, as far as I can tell from my brief experiments, it is indeed possible to use the SB-800 in conjunction with plain ol' auto thyrister or fully manual flash units.

 

However, the only way I've been able to do this successfully is with the SB-800 in manual mode. In TTL modes the preflashes will prematurely pop ordinary optical triggers. I have only ordinary optical triggers and am too cheap to spring for newer ones. If I'm gonna spend more money on flash it'll go toward another SB-800.

 

So I piddled around with various settings in manual mode 'til I got the right amount of main flash. Then I adjusted the other units as best I could, including using diffusers to cut back a bit on their effect. After about half a dozen tries I got some workable effects that eliminated weird shadows behind my test subject.

I use an SB800 or my SB28 with Vivitar 285's or my Vivitar 283.

It will not under any circumstances calculate flash in TTL

or automatic.(even with any Nikon) What does work is to put a wein Peanut slave in the pc/cord connection in the slave flashes and use a flash meter. Put tne main Nikon flash on manual and meter that by itself. Then use the vivitar's in 1/2-1/4-1/8 etc. depending on the ratio that you want and meter them by themselve's one by one to determine the ratio in relation to the Main Flash. Practice-practice-practice!! Make sure when you meter the slave's, the main light must not go off.

<p>I'm just getting into off camera flash and discovered this technique to use with my just acquired SB800: Try using the 285 as the "master" and the SB800 as slave. Set the SB800 to SU4 choice in the master slave menu and choose manual exposure. You can even use the 285 off camera with a sync cable and trigger the SB800. See here:http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/08/unlock-superslave-in-your-nikon-sb-800.html for details. I just learned about is and can't wait to test it out.<br>

Michael</p>

<p>Yup, SU4 mode in the very versatile Nikon SB-800 flash is useful with many cameras. The SB-800 recycles so quickly that with 1/2 or lower output the SB-800 in SU4 mode can be used as a supplemental flash even for cameras that have only full-auto flash with preflash that cannot be disabled. The SB-800 can recycle quickly enough to pop once for the preflash, and be ready again a split second later for the main flash. The trick is to keep the manual output to 1/2 or less. Since my post here in 2005 I've probably used my SB-800 flash as often for non-Nikon cameras as for my Nikons.</p>