Combining CLS and Pocketwizards

<p>Hey folks,<br>

I am still learning off camera flash, so forgive me. I did a search and it seems what I want to do might be feasible, just unsure of specifics. Alright, so in my film kit I use an FM2n with two SB-28's and three Pocketwizard Plus II's. Pretty straight forward. With digital I have a D80 with a SB-800 and SB-600. And I can use CLS or the PW's, so with both systems I have a max of two flashes off camera. I was wondering if there was a way to somehow combine the two and get at least three off camera with my D80. Or am I just going to have to buy more PW's? I also use a Sekonic 358 with the module that triggers the PW's. Thanks,<br>

casey</p>

 

<p>Casey, surely you can put the SB600 and 800 into "ordinary" (manual/single flash) slave mode? That way you can trigger one or two flashes using the radio trigger and let the remainder pop off by optical slave. Or you can buy cheap Chinese-made radio trigger kits of one sender and 3 or 4 hotshoe type receivers for under $50. They work just as well as a Pocket wizard.</p>

<p>Creative Lighting System? Think again Nikon! Not all of your customers are Papparazzi photographers you know.</p>

<p>With the new Pocket Wizard Mini-TT1 and Flex-TT5 for Nikon, it looks like you can use those with the Plus III's and trigger the SB-28s as manual set flash and have the SB-800 and SB-600 controlled with CLS.</p>

The SB-600 cannot be a simple optical slave, but the SB-800 can ... Just put it in SU-4 mode, and it will go off

whenever it sees the SB-28's fire. That's an easy third flash in your current rig.

Woops, double post. $%* iPad 4.2 WiFi bug! grrr

<p>Just one question: How does CLS perform when you put light modifiers like softboxes and snoots over the flash head?</p>

<p>The CLS pre-flash that is used to determine the flash strength will compensate for the modifier(s). The biggest hit is that if the modifier drops the end strength by 1 or 2 stops the flash may not be able to put out enough light to compensate. That will depend on the flash to subject distance.</p>

<p>Forget about CLS if you want to use your sekonic - CLS send out preflashes so you can't meter.</p>

<p>So it's either the new ttl pocketwizards (if you want to use cls/ttl) or the regular pocketwizards like the ones you already have.</p>

<p>Budget option is to use an optical slave with the SB600 and activate SU4 mode on the SB800. Or hook up two or more strobes to the same pocketwizard using a headphone splitter on the pocketwizard.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>PW Plus II manual, around pg. 7. You'll need one receiver per flash you'll use off-camera. As Matt said, with the SB-800 in SU-4 mode, you have enough gear. If you need more, you can use something like a Wein Peanut to trigger them. Allocate the PW's for any that won't be in line-of-sight to the others' flash.</p>

You can use the sekonic to meter when using CLS as long as it is not really close and you are not using any of the flashes in TTL, I've done it often but I do use the IR filter over the commanding flash which probably helps since meters should not be very IR sensitive.

 

Put the SB800 in SU-4 (optical slave) mode.

<p>Thanks a lot. I did not even think about SU-4 mode. Three flashes about all I want anyway, so that should be perfect. casey</p>