Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi I am new to lighting and I have a 580ex and just bought 2 B800's. I shoot with a 5D classic and what I was wondering is will my 580 trigger the Alien's?

You can use the 580 to trigger the Bees using their optical slave eye. It's automatically on unless you plug a cable in the sync port, which disables it.

For it to work well, you'll have to put the 580 in a non-TTL mode that doesn't send a pre-flash. I'd try manual - big M on the 580's screen. You can experiment with what flash output from the 580 is needed to trigger the Bees - it's likely that even 1/128 or 1/64 would do it. At these settings, the 580's output shouldn't impact your exposure except maybe as a pinpoint catchlight in a subject's eye.

Itwimberly has it correct. TTL flashes for digital emit a preflash that will trigger the Bees too early, resulting in a dark image.

You will probably find that you do not need the flash set to a very high power to trigger the Bees, but to lessen the exposure on your subject, you can use the bounce/swivel feature of that flash (which may even increase the success rate of triggering the Bees). Keep in mind that the Bees' slave eye needs to "see" the flash, either directly or bounced. If the slave eye is shielded, this may not work. Also, if your flash can set off the lights, so can anyone else's. For better reliability, you may want to look into the CyberSync system.

Thanks!

I am having trouble with positioning my 2 alien bee 800s so that the one with my sync triggers the other one by its slave eye. I pretty much have to point it at the back of it. Any diagrams with suggested postioning?

The slave eyes are sensitive to bounced light, however, it does have to bounce and still hit the slave eye with sufficient intensity. Use the light with the broadest spread of light, even if it is not the main light. If your walls are darker in color, and/or at a considerable distance, and/or non existent, you may need to place a reflective surface to "catch" the master flash and bounce it back. If you are shooting in bright light outdoors, this may be difficult.