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Microstock Photography Forum - General => Photography Equipment => Lighting => Topic started by: melastmohican on June 12, 2009, 13:58

Title: What optical slave for Vivitar 285HV?
Post by: melastmohican on June 12, 2009, 13:58

I just got Vivitar 285HV. Nice flash, seems to be much higher quality than cheap Bower flash I returned same day it was delivered.
Now I want to trigger it remotely. I got two optical slaves:

1. Wein Peanut PN. I tried with PC cable supplied with flash and directly and it does not seem like it works. It can fire flash randomly but most of the time is dead. I guess it has something to do with connector which does feel very tight when inserted directly into flash port.

2. Seagull SYK-4. It’s actually hot shoe adapter with optical slave. It works much better than first one, at least when in direct line of sight.It triggers when flash is in hot shoe and connected thru PC cable. I did not make many tests to tell if it’s 100% reliable.

Title: Re: What optical slave for Vivitar 285HV?
Post by: Dook on June 12, 2009, 15:36

http://flashzebra.com/opticalslaves/0050.shtml (http://flashzebra.com/opticalslaves/0050.shtml)
http://flashzebra.com/screwlock_pc_fivemeter/0033.shtml (http://flashzebra.com/screwlock_pc_fivemeter/0033.shtml) (with PC cable it always fires)
and, of course, Pocket Wizards - the best solution, but twice the price of Vivitar flash

Title: Re: What optical slave for Vivitar 285HV?
Post by: massman on June 12, 2009, 15:37

I have had a lot of success with the cheap radio triggers from Ebay. They work fine for me (still life in the studio) but I'm not sure I would trust them 100% on a time/subject sensitive shoot. The only problems I get is if they are too close together (less than a meter), they just fire randomly.

Title: Re: What optical slave for Vivitar 285HV?
Post by: melastmohican on June 12, 2009, 16:01

I was thinking about Cactus V2s instead of experimenting with different optical slaves. On the other hand I already have ST-E2 would not be nice to use it as transmitter. I think it should trigger optical slave and my 580EX at the same time. If not then I have to connect PC cable to radio trigger I guess. Cactus transmitter have hot shoe and PC connector.

Title: Re: What optical slave for Vivitar 285HV?
Post by: melastmohican on June 12, 2009, 16:05

Quote from: Dook on June 12, 2009, 15:36

[url]http://flashzebra.com/opticalslaves/0050.shtml[/url] ([url]http://flashzebra.com/opticalslaves/0050.shtml[/url])
[url]http://flashzebra.com/screwlock_pc_fivemeter/0033.shtml[/url] ([url]http://flashzebra.com/screwlock_pc_fivemeter/0033.shtml[/url]) (with PC cable it always fires)
and, of course, Pocket Wizards - the best solution, but twice the price of Vivitar flash

I feel like throwing money away. $15 for optical slave or cable. I already got two slaves which adds up almost to price of Cactus wireless set :-)