How to trigger a Vivitar 285HV

[rubens_t_vora]

Dear,

 

I already have a commander SU800 and Two Nikon's SB600 an SB800. Considering this pack, I will need extra

speedlights - not Nikons - Vivitar 285HV and might work in manual mode and triggered.

 

How to do it? - With Wein Peanut Slave atttached? There is two models avaiable - PN and PND. Are they capable?

 

Thanks, Rubens

[frank_skomial]

"I will need extra speedlights - not Nikons - Vivitar 285HV and might work " - if you do not have the Vivitars yet ? - then you do not need them. If you already have Vivitars? - then you will need to trigger them via cable or radio but not optical. What camera do you have ? - may be there could be some help for you with the Vivitars if the camera has PC sync socket ?

 

You have the good thing going with SU800 and SB800/600, why do you want to spoil your fun ?

 

Search photo.net for numerous explanations of similar ideas with Vivitar or other non-compatible with Nikon CLS flashes, and why they are generally not good for SU-800 or CLS.

[rubens_t_vora]

Hi Frank, Ido have a D2H, but definately don't want use pc cords. Those Vivitar are good ones and very cheap compared to Nikons. Tks for your Help

[john gettis]

I have two peanut slaves and a couple of 285hvs one old and one new (little over a year) and the peanut slave will not trigger either of the strobes, I just checked mine are the PN version. If possible I would try the slaves in the store to see if they work before I bought them. John

[rubens_t_vora]

Thanks John, actually I am in Brazil that does not have stores with so many accessories like this one. I use to buy in your stores.

[gt1]

"I have two peanut slaves and a couple of 285hvs one old and one new (little over a year) and the peanut slave will not trigger either of the strobes, I just checked mine are the PN version. If possible I would try the slaves in the store to see if they work before I bought them."

 

That's unfortunate. After a couple of years of hobby photography without flash I finally picked up 2 285HVs, one to put on camera, and one to use a peanut on. Maybe the PND version will work with the current 285s?

[dennis_ecklund]

Any slave trigger that will work with a Vivitar 283 will work with a 285. I have and use both. I haven't used any of the

Wein "peanut" slaves for years as I found them unreliable. They tended to die after they were dropped, and dropping

the little critters is easy. I found myself going through them like, uh, peanuts.

 

The Wein FFA slave foot is the best trigger I found. I've been using mine for about 13 years. The foot is a direct

replacement for the plastic hotshoe foot on the 283 and 285. It will still mount in the camera's accessory shoe, but

you lose the hotshoe function. You get a strong aluminum shoe mount that has a very sensitive built-in optical

slave trigger and a tripod socket. You can still trigger with a cable if you wish. I originally mounted mine on a 283

and later swapped it over to the 285, which I used ever since as a dedicated slave.

 

One thing though, forget about using it with your fancy flash units that communicate

with each other. It also won't work with a built-in flash that uses any kind of a pre-flash, since it triggers too soon. I

almost went nuts trying to use it with the pop-up flash on my Samsung GX-10 beore I figured out what was

happening.

[richard_cochran]

I've had excellent results with the Wein HS Hot Shoe Slave (available at B&H <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/62712-REG/Wein_W940030_HS_Hot_Shoe_Slave.html">here</a>). Though I use mine with Sunpak 383s rather than Vivitar 285HVs. In addition to being a decent optical slave, it's nice because it provides a standard tripod thread at the bottom, so you can mount the slave directly on a tripod or anything that's got a male 1/4-20 thread, and then slide the flash into the slave's hot shoe.

<p>

Others are completely correct that any preflash system (Nikon's CLS, etc.) will be incompatible with slave flashes triggered by simple optical slaves. If you use ordinary optical slaves, you'll be setting flash power manually for ALL of your flashes, not just the ones you've slaved via ordinary optical slaves. That's not at all hard once you try it a bit. A side benefit is that, by eliminating preflash, even your twitchiest subjects won't have a chance to blink -- the one single flash will be over long before they've had time to react.

[rubens_t_vora]

Dear Dennis and Richard,

 

Thanks for your attention. As far as I know, SU800 doesn't use pre-flashes to set-up speedlights but Infrared. It happens only when using Sb-800 as commander. So that is why I'm truly convinced that lights trigged from either Sb-800 or Sb600 will trigger any Wein slave.

Tks, Rubens

[frank_skomial]

" I'm truly convinced that lights trigged from either Sb-800 or Sb600 will trigger any Wein slave" - Yes, when SB-800 or SB-600 are used in Manual mode and on the camera hot shoe, or in manual mode e.g. SU4 mode or SB-800 as secondary source of trigerring light. You will give up the CLS auto light determination this way.

 

In CLS, with SU-800 use as a commander, Wein slave will also get triggered but most likely by the preflash communication light comming back from CLS remote SB-800 or SB-600, but not when the camera shutter is open. Even though the SU-800 does not produce visible communication light, the remote CLS flashes must produce visible test light that must come back to the camera through the lens for light need determination by the CLS mode in the compatible camera, and all of that happens during preflash time.

 

Some optical slaves get triggered by visible and also by IR light. If your Wein has such a property, that one could get triggered by invisible IR signal from SU-800 during pre-flash time, or light response from CLS remote, or possibly during final exposure light from other flashes.

 

Some optical slaves, e.g. Vivitar, have a switch to set for low or high sensitivity, while some so called "digital optical slaves" have switches that allow skip/ignore the first light blast and trigger on the second or third. .... though I never had success with those.... vendors are yet to make them reliable for Nikon CLS system....

[frank_skomial]

Richard's last paragraph explains well what you cannot do, and what you could possibly do.

 

As for your "truly convinced" - perhaps by now you understand where you were wrong with it ?

 

If you were trying to use inexpensive Vivitars from the very beginning?, then the purchase of SU-800 was unnecessary or not justified, since you cannot use them all at the same time, without extra purchase of either radio triggers or long trigger cables.

 

Once you settled and spent money on CLS, forget the purchase of Vivitars, and go all the way with CLS system. You can augment CLS with radio trigerring of Vivitars or other CLS not compatible flashes like studio strobes, using you camera PC sync socket, but you do not want cables, and Pocket Wizards are expensive.

 

I do not have D2H and cannot tell for sure, but the PC sync socket could possibly provide sync signal to a Pocket Wizard during actual exposure time (works on D200, etc.), that could possibly trigger via radio means. You would have to deal with CLS light determination and at the same time non-controllable light from non CLS flashes, ... and that is where you could "spoil your fun" - but sometimes, due to low power of all CLS flashes, huge studio strobes (not Vivitars that is) come to advantage providing higher ambient flash light level or diffused/bounced light, when CLS provides correct main and sides lighting all at the same time when the shutter is open....

[rubens_t_vora]

Hi Frank, You were really clear and helpfull on those topics and give a best idea for this scenario. My final dobt after reading Kirk Tuck book is : SU800 uses infrared pulses with faint white pre-flashes. Are they visible to optical slaves? Otherwise , as you sad I will stay with nikon models.

 

Thanks a Lot, Rubens

[frank_skomial]

" SU800 uses infrared pulses with faint white pre-flashes. Are they visible to optical slaves?" - most likely NOT, but that does not give you reason to think that you could possbily use SU800 with optical slaves in the CLS system.

 

Some optical slaves are sensitive also to IR light, but some do not, and it is hard to know before hand/ before trying....

 

...but even if SU-800 light alone will not trigger optical slave, the response test light produced by remote SB800/600 during CLS communication will trigger optical slave... so SU800 light really does not matter at all., since the CLS iTTL auto light test determination system uses more lights than just the SU-800 commanding lights, and those "will spoil your fun"

 

You cannot use optical triggers with CLS at all, and it does not matter if your commander is SU800 or the SB-800 in camera hot shoe.

 

I am not questioning what Kirk Tuck wrote: " Kirk Tuck book is : SU800 uses infrared pulses with faint white pre-flashes" - as that is true, but that should not lead you to wrong conslusion that you seem to get stack on, and have difficulties to grasp?

 

"Are they visible to optical slaves?" perhaps not visible to majority of the optical slave triggers, but you need to look at entrire CLS preflash/testing process, that seems Nikon, Kirk, or other books do not explain well.

 

Re-read my prior explanations and try to understand what I wrote, and do not get boged down on Kirk or anyone elase, try to think how that works, especially in part:

 

"Even though the SU-800 does not produce visible communication light, the remote CLS flashes must produce visible test light that must come back to the camera ..." and this visible light will most certainly will trigger optical slaves well before the shutter gets open.

 

You should not worry about the SU-800 produced light possibility to trigger optical slaves, but about remote SB800 and SB600 producing visible light in the CLS mode while responding to the SU-800 commanding preflashes, as those would more likely trigger optically triggered/connected remote flashes instead of SU800.

 

I do not know how to explain this better,.. try re-reading all my posts slowly, and chances are that you will get off your "conviction".

[rubens_t_vora]

Hi Frank,

 

It is been a plasure have you as a pro-moderator over here. Thanks

 

By the way, I have a dobt about the difference betwen 1/3 step increments thru -3.0 to + 3.0 EV is that you can see over the SU-800 and than you gong to find in manual mode you start from 1/8 to 1/128.

 

No dobts about 1/3 incements, but if you are in maual mode at 1/1, this equals to 0 EV? And them, still in manual mode, when decrements occurs from 1/8 to 1/128 how much power do we loose over each down step ? -1 EV ?

 

Thanks, Rubens

[bob_bill]

Frank makes perfect sense. I trigger Nikon sb 28s (non cls flashes) with elinchron skyports and a 285 with an

optical slave from flashzebra.com. Cables for all were from them also. Great service. You might ask them if they

have a solution. A skyport sender (you should be able to plug it into the pc sync socket) and receiver package is

$200 (way less than pocket wizards, rock solid reliable and are the size of a small box of matches)and might make

the 285 useable with the the sbs still communicating and give you the added bonus of at least one light with a 450

foot range out doors and non line of sight functioning handy when hiding lights in the shot or adding light to an

adjoining room. Each addl receiver is $100.