Off camera flash - hot shoe confusion!

Verbium · 14 Mar 2011 at 15:49

After a bit of a success at the weekend with taking the camera out by off chance I think I've caught the photography bug again! I've got a Nikon D60 with a Sunpak flash and I've always been interested in using umbrellas and off camera flash to get some good pictures. There have been plenty of good examples on this forum that have made me want to try!

Neither my camera or flash have a PC sync port so I was looking into getting a couple of adapters and a cable (4-5m) to achieve it. However after a bit of look around it seems a lot of cables come with a 3.5mm jack ending instead so does this mean it's possible to make a bit of a DIY piece of kit? It would save me about £5-10 if i could!

What do you guys suggest?

Oh and here's a picture from the weekend, enjoy

DSC_0091_edit by Verbium, on Flickr

mcc49 · 14 Mar 2011 at 15:55

Get yourself a Yongnuo RF602 trigger set for not much more than a sync cable. It gives you much better range and freedom of being wireless.

Good composition and processing on that photo but the subject is abit too underexposed, all the details in the hair and trousers are lost.

Namistai · 14 Mar 2011 at 20:15

The background of that photo is really nice exposure for a punchy portrait. Some lighting on the subject really would have made that photo - looking forward to seeing it again with some OCF!

Verbium · 14 Mar 2011 at 21:45

mcc49 said:
Get yourself a Yongnuo RF602 trigger set for not much more than a sync cable. It gives you much better range and freedom of being wireless.

Good composition and processing on that photo but the subject is abit too underexposed, all the details in the hair and trousers are lost.

With the flash on the camera I found it pretty difficult to get it to look subtle enough for the image, that's about as close as I could get without her looking completely washed out. Thanks for the tip though, I'll be getting myself some of those! Much easier than hoping no one trips over the cables.

Namistai said:
The background of that photo is really nice exposure for a punchy portrait. Some lighting on the subject really would have made that photo - looking forward to seeing it again with some OCF!

I'm hopefully getting another chance in a few weeks, dissertation needs to be written but I have a couple of friends lined up who want some photos taken. I've only got a stock lens so a lot of time is spent in photoshop touching up what I couldn't do with the lens, annoying but I'm budget restricted!