Hello to the PhotoForum! Anyone know about strobe lighting?

[cgipson1]

I have read this thread and just want to clarify that I understood the information correctly:

I am learning the art of studio shooting and am blown away at how some of the seemingly simple tasks still take careful planning. In trying to combine a studio strobe with an SB600 speedlight, I get confused and this thread seems to cover the subject. I have been able to fire my strobe (cheap JL 180v eBay purchase) with it connected to my D700 via sync cable AND with it connected via wireless transmitter (another cheap eBay purchase). My SB600 has worked fine on camera and off-camera in slave mode. I want to use them together and seem to be missing a detail.

Senario: D700 connected to strobe via sync cable, and SB600 is in slave mode off-camera (channel 3, group A). Should the strobe trigger the SB600 in this situation? On the camera menu, is the strobe the 'built-in flash' and SB600 is 'group A'? Should both be set in TTL mode or only one? Do I need to have the on-board flash popped up in this situation to trigger the SB600?

I am confused as to if the on-board flash is 'built-in flash' and strobe AND SB600 are classified as groups A and B or if whichever flash is connected via sync cable is considered on-board flash? Could I have worded this any worse

My main problem is I seem to get one flash to fire or the other, but not both.

If you have the SB-600 setup to use CLS... that will not work unless you raise your pop-up flash, or use an SU-800 on top of your camera. CLS uses IR / pre-flash .. not optical slave. The SB-600 does not have an SU-4 mode, which you would need for the setup you describe .. but you could use one of these Amazon.com: optical slave trigger (put the flash in Manual)

I am not familiar with the JL strobe you describe (from Ebay)... but if it is a monolight, then it may have a optical slave mode built in. Use the SB-600 to set it off... not the other way around.

Or get a hotshoe adapter that will allow multiple PC cables to hook up, and use cables on all of it. Or buy another wireless unit to put the SB-600 on....