Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I was reading the specs on the hot shoe adapter and it says it will not trigger speedlites. But your saying it will w/ a PC cord?

Also, assuming I'm shooting w/ the speedlite on camera w/ a hot shoe adapter that I've pc-synced with an Alien Bee, can the CLS functions then be used since the Alien Bee is not triggered wirelessly?

The note on not being able to trigger speedlites is some people will order this adapter thinking the speedlite can go on top and a PC cord can go in the side, and they can use a reciever to trigger the speedlite. The hotshoe adapter has a "cold" shoe on top, meaning it will hold something, but no electronic signals will pass (and a "hot" foot to go into the "hot" shoe of the camera). Where the speedlite foot adapter will have a cold foot, and a hot shoe for mounting to a speedlite.

We do not offer an adapter that allows a pass through signal, either dumb or intelligent. Pixel (brand) make a TTL pass through adapter that will allow a speedlite to operate in TTL/CLS mode while providing a PC out. These can be found at www.flashzebra.com.

While triggering is possible while keeping synchronization when using CLS and a manual flash, you will typically run into overexposure problems as the light from the Bee is not calculated.

(More specifically, CLS is a wireless protocol and can be either manual or TTL. Manual CLS will still work fine if the slave eye of the Bee is disengaged. TTL, either wireless, wired or direct will yield the over exposed results.)