Slaving one strobe to a second instead of the camera- considerations?

[casts_by_fly]

Hi All,

I nearly purchased a non Olympus strobe as a second for my setup. I currently have a single Olympus strobe. In thinking how they could work together, one option would have been straight TTL on both strobes. However, the Olympus system has the RC setup for remote strobes which saves on battery. It works really well. I was thinking instead that I could put the second strobe in TTL slave and connect it to the Olympus which is on RC mode. The Olympus would be turned on and off (including preflash) by the camera. The second strobe would be turned on and off by watching for the Olympus strobe. Then I get the best of both (TTL metering and RC mode). Anyone tried this? Is there a flaw in this plan?

Also, my second thought was that the second strobe is able to be triggered without a fiber optic cable (i.e. has a sensor on the face of the strobe). I know the fiber cord is more reliable than triggering via an internal flash, but surely the Olympus strobe should be more than visible by the second strobe for triggering purposes?

I know that manual power is the easiest solution, but I don't want to shoot manual.

thanks,
rick

 

[KeithG]

as long as your second strobe can function as an optical slave and can handle the preflash this setup works. Lots of S&S strobe manuals illustrate this setup. slaving off your strobe is no different than slaving off the onboard flash (other than a few micro or milli second delay when chained).

no cable will work very poorly in some cases. The cable helps solve the following problems
- false trigger caused by the strobes of some other idiot photog that got too close to you. their strobes will trigger your strobe.
- no trigger in cases were there was not enough light reflected back to your strobe. think about wide angle or non "plain jane" strobe placement for lighting effects. successful lighting means the strobe light gets back to the camera lens, not your other strobe.

Use the cable for consistent results.