Canon 550EX as slave to an AlienBee

hello.

 

has anyone tried to use the Canon 550 EX as a *wireless slave flash*

to an AlienBees (or any other brand for that matter) strobe? i know i

can use the AlienBee as the slave...i've tried that and it worked...i

assumed that vice-versa should work as well...am i wrong in the

assumption? or is my flash broken?

 

 

thanks.

Yes, it can be done. However, you will need a hotshoe optical slave trigger compatible with the 550EX. (The 550EX only responds to coded, pulsed flash signals; it does not have an optical slave trigger built in.)

 

Set your 550EX to slave mode. Then hold down the MODE button for several seconds until the M starts flashing. You are now in manual slave mode and the 550EX will not emit a preflash. Finally, set the desired proportional output (from 1/1 to 1/128).

As Bill says, the 550EX doesn't have the ability to do this by itself. But it can be done with the right optical slave attached. All the usual ones that I have tried cause the Speedlite to lock up after each flash, requiring you press the "open flash button", or turning it off/on, to be able to get just one more flash. That's anoying. The one slave that does work with all Canon Speedlites is the Ikelite Light-Link TTL Slave. You can use it to trigger the 550EX (or any E, EZ, or EX series Speedlite) in wireless TTL mode, with another appropriate flash, or as a manual slave if you put the 550EX in manual mode.

 

BTW, having a generic optical slave built in is one feature that the Sigma EF-500 Super has that none of the Canon's do.

<i>The 550EX only responds to coded, pulsed flash signals; it does not have an optical slave trigger built in.</i><br><br>

oh man that sucks. now i have to cough up additional dough for an optical slave...<br><br>

<i>BTW, having a generic optical slave built in is one feature that the Sigma EF-500 Super has that none of the Canon's do.</i>

oh man that sucks even more. <br><br>

 

thanks for info guys. i'll check out the Ikelite thingy then...

eek! the Ikelite Light-Link TTL Slave costs $90?!

The Ikelite "Litelink" is more than just a slave trigger. It is designed for use with a TTL dedicated flash unit and is available for Canon or Nikon. It is designed to trigger the "slave" flash attached to it when the on-camera flash fires and shut off when the on-camera flash is quenched by the camera's TTL circuitry. In that way, you get TTL auto exposure with multiple flash units.

 

It does not work with E-TTL flash but should work with the 550EX in manual mode. Newer ones for Canon have a 2-position switch; in one position, the flash may lock up after firing but in the other it will work OK. It uses a 9 volt battery and has a 1/4-20 threaded hole on the bottom for mounting on a tripod or light stand.

The Sigma EF Super 500 DG has the optical slave built in and only half the price.....sorry had to throw my two cents in.