Oddity in Nissin i40 flash slave -- or not?

[jonathan7007]

I was out on the street at 5am with the bicyclist posing in front of me. We had been asked to do a simple shot so on a low tripod to allow me to drag the shutter to render street and commercial lights while a 580EX2 -- set for Manual -- was on the shoe of the 1DsMark3. Assistant to my right had, in hand, a Nissin i40 and the plan was to side-light the subject with this little unit firing slaved -- optically. I have often used this small flash in interiors I shoot when some dark nook requires a slaved light kick in a hard-to-hide-the-flash place. That experience ws always with my Einsteins.

As usual, I set the Nissin for Slave-Digital ("Sd") and to my annoyance it did not fire even when placed right in front of the 580 (as a test). We gave up the sidelight idea, had only a minute or two to finish.

Later I tested in my office and saw that with the 580ex2 I could get slaved fire from the i40 at "Sf", what Nissin calls, "slave-film".

I don't know what is different than my experience with my Einsteins. Yes, we were outside which can be a problem for slaves, but it was still dark... no ambient to speak of. I was on Manual so no preflash. I was shooting at 1/8/or 1/16th, but the unit didn't fire right in front of the 580's tube as a test.

I don't think I can call Nissin but maybe I will try... Thoughts anyone?

Jonathan7007

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Jonathan.
The reason it worked on sf and not sd is because you were on manual on the trigger, setting manual removes the ETTL pre flash which the Nissin is expecting to see in digital mode and ignore so it fires on the main flash, so effectively it was waiting for the second flash directly after the flash you wanted to fire it. They really could make this easier by designating them ETTL and manual or ETTL and pre flash ignore. Pre flash ignore is also useful for ignoring red eye reduction lights.
I have a Nissin Di622 which only works as a slave in ETTL mode and took me working this out to find out why it wouldn't fire on manual flash! It's for sale!

Cheers, Graham.

 

[jonathan7007]

Ah. If the gear is going to "think" it should voice its concerns, "Where is my preflash, sir, please?"

THANK YOU for the explanation.

This is my fault because I hadn't ever tested this use case and tried it on a shoot. Yes, the manual (a single sheet with controls very simply labeled) could have called this out but hey, that's why we get paid the big bucks.

I bought some 580EX2's just to have speedlights equipped with the PC connection -- so I could use them my preferred way: little manual location strobes for when the Einstein kit isn't appropriate. Since Canon didn't want to provide the 580EX2 with a built-in I'll always take a bunch of little ones of my own.

Again, much thanks.