Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

what trigger do i need to get for my cyber commander to fire my hotshoe flash? also, i have a sony A900 and my cyber commander wont connect to the cameras hotshoe mount? is there any way to connect it? right now i have had to connect the commander with a cable to trigger and just have it hang...

You need an adapter that translates. This would be the equivilent of the minolta FS1100, I personally use these, and they work great: http://www.flashzebra.com/products/0131/index.shtml
We do not offer a transmitter in the Alpha hotshoe mount, but using the adapter works quite well with either the CST or Cyber Commander, either of which will work for triggering the lights when the Cyber Commander is in use.

If you are using a camera with live view (especially the A33 or A55), there are more bits of info to share, but may add confusion if you are not. Let me know, and I will explain further.

you have me interested! my A900 doesnt have live veiw but my A550 does...

also, what receiver do i need for a sony hotshoe flash so i can trigger it with the cyber commander?

http://www.flashzebra.com/products/0141/index.shtml I use these. As well there are other options, but I do not think there is any OEM alternative. The Minolta FS1200 would still need another adapter.

As for Sony cameras with live view, and this may apply to other live view cameras as well, if there is no dedicated flash on camera, the screen will show more or less what the image will look like at those settings. Outside, not typically a problem. Inside at ISO 100, 1/200, f/11, the image will be very dark with no flash, resulting in a live view that is very dark because the camera does not know it is connected to a manual flash. Therefore, using liveview, you cannot see what is happening. Some live view models may have an option for "auto gain" or some similar name which artifically brightens the image, i.e. not representative of what the pix will look like with no flash. I do not know which cameras do or do not have auto gain capabilities, except the A33, A55, and A300 do not as far as I can tell. This is only a real problem with the A33 and A55 since they are live view all the time, other cameras have optical view finders. Hopefully the A77 will have auto gain.

oh ya, my 550 is not limited to only live veiw so that does not affect me. as for that hotshoe cable for the sony flash, would i need that or is there a psynch cable that can be ran from the reciever to the flash? i have a sony 58 flash that has a synch cord port...

The port on the flash is a proprietary TTL connection for off camera cords. I have yet to source a TTL to 1/8" cord.

ah ok. thanks for the info.