Slave trigger?

Hey,
i was wondering if anyone has used these hot shoe slave triggers for a flash before. I see them on ebay for like ten bucks and was thinking about buying one. Has anyone used them before? how do they work? and can You use any flash with these? thanks

 

I'm using an infrared flash trigger sometimes. pro: wireless -
con: it needs to face the strobe/flash to trigger it, meaning it
doesn't work in any given situation.

 

I haven't used one, but it works by putting out a flash of light. A sensor on the strobe sees the flash and then triggers it's own output of light. It's the same as triggering with your own flash, except the output of the trigger isn't enough to help light the image; it's just supposed to be enough to get the other strobes to trigger. I have no idea how well they work myself. Infrared sounds like a neat idea.

 

are some better than others?

 

I've used a few different models that are triggered by IR or visible light, mostly cheaper ones. Outside of carefully controlled studio lighting they seemed to get pretty quirky. Especially when I tried to use them outside, the sun (and other bright lights) would set them off. Some have an adjustment to control the amount of light that will set them off.

 

Hrm. It seems like we are talking about two different devices.

There's the unit you put on your hot-shoe or plug your flash cable into which creates a flash of light to trigger the slaves. This is handy if you don't want to use your flash in the exposure.

Then there's the unit you plug into a flash that's mounted on a stand to turn in into a slaved strobe. Many strobe units already have a sensor to allow it to act as a slave triggered by a flash of light, so you only need it if the unit you are using doesn't have the slave circuitry.

 

Nod, right, I was taking about the flash mounted gizmo. I didn't read the first post well enough.