SHUTTERBUG AT LARGE MY DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY TOOL KIT-PART ONE: 

GEAR FOR THE ePHOTO CROWD Page 46 WEIN DIGITAL SLAVES 

One of the things I have done in my studio for many years is use an on-camera flash with my studio lights. The on-camera flash had three purposes: 

1......to fire my studio flash system via a slave sensor 

2......to provide a little bit of fill light from the camera's direction. 

3......to provide a catch light in the subject's eyes when my studio flash was not in a position to do that. 

Depending on the look I wanted, the on-camera flash was set from 1/2 to 2 stops below the light level from the studio flash. I don't like the look of direct flash even when used at low level fill. This always worked great until Canon improved their flash system and offered E-TTL flash control. In E-TTL the camera flash first emits a low powered pre-flash which is measured by the camera to fine tune flash exposure . It made flash much more reliable but it defeated my system because the pre-flash would fire my studio flash before the camera shutter opened and I would get blank frames. I felt overcome by progress. 

Then along came digital SLRs and all of the makers had to adopt a pre-flash system because TTL flash measurement does not work off the face of a digital sensor. 

I brought this up one day in a telephone conversation with Stan Weinberg, the man responsible for all the nifty photographic gadgets sold under the WEIN name. It turned out that others had been griping about the same thing and Stan had been at work on a solution. The solution is now available in the new WEIN DIGITAL SLAVES ,and I can finally go back to my preferred way of working . 

The WEIN DIGITAL SLAVES are available in all the popular slave configurations of their conventional battery less  option slave line. See www.weinproducts.com in the DIGITAL section. No matter what brand of electronic flash you have, one of their new DIGITAL slaves will work. 

The professional long range SSLD and SSLED series even has a slide switch that can select either(1) normal  (single flash) or digital flash (2). Note: some older obsolete Olympus digitals that have two pre-flashes will not work.

I have been delighted with the freedom I once more have to use flash the way I like. I have done a number of studio shoots using the WEIN DIGITAL SLAVES and I am pleased to report that they have performed flawlessly in every case. 

WEIN SAFE SYNC HSHS

 Another gadget from WEIN is at home on any digital camera as well as many conventional ones as well. Called HSHS SAFESYNC (reg) (Hot shoe to hot shoe) it steps down the trigger voltage of old flash units that can be as high as 400 volts to below 6 volts required by all digital and many other modern cameras. 

You can use it with hot shoe flash units or you can plug other types in (studio flash) via a PC cord  to the PC connector on the front of the HSHS SAFESYNC. 

When it comes to expensive camera equipment, you are better safe than sorry and the HSHS provides that safety and sells for under $60 . I have not seen a camera repair bill that small in many years. 

Wein also makes other versions of safesync including for double bladed household connections that are depolarized so you don't have to worry about polarity. Hot shoe to PC, Phono to phono European), household female  to household male for many US powerpaks. 

For more information,  call Tiffen  their exclusive distributor.    www.tiffen.com.