Remote flash trigger for NEX-6

[Castor Krieg]

Hi guys,

I just recently got into digital photography, and I was very curious about all the great things you can do with off-camera flash. I have NEX-6 and Sony HVL-F60M flash. I tried to find remote trigger flashes for the NEX cameras, but couldn't. All the Yongnuos list only compatible Canon and Nikon models.

Mind you, NEX-6 has a standard hotshoe, as opposed to NEX-5 and NEX-7. Should any wireless trigger work?

Thanks for help!

[inkista]

I have NEX-6 and Sony HVL-F60M flash. I tried to find remote trigger flashes for the NEX cameras, but couldn't. All the Yongnuos list only compatible Canon and Nikon models.

Mind you, NEX-6 has a standard hotshoe, as opposed to NEX-5 and NEX-7. Should any wireless trigger work?

Depends on the type of trigger you're going for. If you just want a Strobist manual-only trigger that relays just the sync ("Fire!") signal, then yes they should all work (e.g., Cactus V5, Yongnuo RF-602, Yongnuo RF-603, etc.).

In the case of the Yongnuos, the Canon/Nikon/Pentax designation is only for the camera shutter release cable that goes with the triggers. The trigger units themselves are identical. Since the NEX cameras have no cable release port at all, this probably isn't an issue. There are TTL pins on some of these triggers, but they're used only for wake-up. The main "fire" signal comes from the pin in the center of the hotshoe "square".

OTOH, looking at the hotshoe of the NEX-6 and the HVL-F60M, there's a metal plate on the bottom of the flash's shoe, so you may want to tape off (i.e., put a piece of tape over) the extra contacts on any receivers that aren't for that center pin, just to avoid any possible crosstalk. Or consider attaching the receiver to the PC sync port (if the flash has one).

TTL triggers, otoh, like the Yongnuo YN-622, Phottix Odin, Pixel King or PocketWizard Flex-TT5 and Mini-TT1, are definitely out unless Sony-NEX compatible ones are made (AFAIK, the only Sony-compatible ones are the Phottix Odins, and they're for the Alpha/Minolta hotshoe). They could probably still work for manual function, but you're paying extra for TTL function, so you'd be just as well off with all-manual triggers.

[Castor Krieg]

Thanks a lot for helpful information! I am still new to all of this - so any flash <-> camera TTL talk is out and the trigger will only instruct the flash to fire? It looks like F60M is pretty robust with features, so I guess I will be able to tweak the flash further.

Also, isn't it kind of an oversight that Sony couldn't be bothered having TTL triggers for NEX cameras?

Can you explain what do you mean by "possible crosstalk"?

[inkista]

Thanks a lot for helpful information! I am still new to all of this - so any flash <-> camera TTL talk is out and the trigger will only instruct the flash to fire?

Yes. Most of the 3rd party trigger manufacturers out there only really support Nikon/Canon TTL, and ISO hotshoes. A few support the Minolta hotshoe. M4/3 is in the same boat in terms of TTL triggers. Given that m4/3 and NEX are only a few years old, and the majority of owners are upgrading from P&S cameras, this kind of makes sense: the numbers aren't quite there, yet to make it worth their while.

It looks like F60M is pretty robust with features, so I guess I will be able to tweak the flash further.

Yup. Looks like you have full manual control over the power output. That's the "must-have" feature to shoot Strobist-style: a way to control how much light the flash puts out.

Also, isn't it kind of an oversight that Sony couldn't be bothered having TTL triggers for NEX cameras?

Actually, they probably do. I'm not that familiar with the Alpha cameras, but Canon, Nikon, and Olympus all have proprietary wireless triggering systems for their flashes. The trouble is they're all light-based signalling protocols. While this works fine indoors in a smaller studio space, outside, the line-of-sight requirements get more stringent (i.e., the remote flash's sensor has to "see" the master/commander signal from the camera, so you can't tuck the flash behind a door), and the range gets smaller--particularly in bright sunlight), so that's when radio triggers become the norm. [Canon, btw, is the only brand at this point that has radio TTL trigger gear and that only came out last year.]

There's also the issue of having a "master" unit either in the camera or on the hotshoe. Which generally means having to purchase two OEM flashes or a higher-tiered camera body (e.g., an A99). This can be more expense than people want to deal with. The Strobist style of shooting all manual flashes with cheap radio triggers became popular because it's low-cost. You don't need to use OEM flashes or get the latest camera body to shoot with manual flash. For the $500 you spend on a top-of-the-line OEM speedlight, you can get three cheap Yongnuo YN-560s, triggers, lightstands, swivels, and umbrellas.

Can you explain what do you mean by "possible crosstalk"?

Metal-to-metal contact conducts electricity, right? On a Canon camera hotshoe, you have five metal contact areas, and on the flash's hotshoe, you have five metal pins. The camera communicates with the flash through these five signals. I have a micro four-thirds camera and flash. They use four metal contacts/pins--but they're placed identically to those on the Canon hotshoes. But the two systems use completely different signally protocols. So, if I were to, say, put my Olympus flash on my Canon camera, the camera could send signal combinations to the flash that the flash isn't set up to deal with. That's what I mean by "crosstalk". You probably won't fry the flash (all the voltages on the new gear are usually 10V or less), but you could get some unexpected behavior, with the protocol mismatch.

Now it's unlikely that your NEX-6 would hit on the signal combination that's the "wake-up signal" used by Canon or Nikon, but who knows how your HLV would deal with it? It might never receive it. It might ignore it. It might do something else. We don't know. All TTL communication protocols are mostly proprietary. 3rd party trigger makers generally figure them out through reverse engineering.

Since your Sony speedlight has a metal plate, all the contacts on the trigger might be shorted at the same time. I have no idea, really. But seeing metal-to-metal contact, I just think caution might be in order. YMMV.

[Castor Krieg]

For the $500 you spend on a top-of-the-line OEM speedlight, you can get three cheap Yongnuo YN-560s, triggers, lightstands, swivels, and umbrellas.

Tell me about it...I got the flash at a recommendation from my father, who is a seasoned (although it seems not seasoned enough) photographer. I might have been better off just getting Yongnuos and the rest of strobist equipment.

Thanks for a lot of info though!

[Manfred M]

Back in the old days, using optical slaves and synch cables was used by everyone other than some high-end pros. This technology might not be as sexy as radio triggers, but works quite well.

[inkista]

Tell me about it...I got the flash at a recommendation from my father, who is a seasoned (although it seems not seasoned enough) photographer. I might have been better off just getting Yongnuos and the rest of strobist equipment.

.... well, it depends. The Yongnuos and cheap gear are good for going cheap and doing off-camera all-manual work. But. There are caveats. They are cheap for a reason. Having to send a faulty unit back to China can cost more than you'd want, depending on where you get them, and they absolutely suck for on-camera run'n'gun event shooting.

There are times you want TTL, high-speed sync, and 2nd curtain sync. And you also know that if Sony changes its flash signalling protocol again in the future, that your expensive FL flash is probably still going to be useful. A Yongnuo TTL flash, like a YN-568EX may not. Reverse engineering has its weaknesses. All Yongnuo can do is analyze the signals on the hotshoes as they are today. They don't have any design visibility into the actual protocol, so the best compatibility is only for the equipment that's current at the time of release. Sony will probably try to stay backwards-compatible with their own gear. But they won't care much for Yongnuo's. And Yongnuo has built in no way to upgrade their flashes. Metz and Nissin, at least, give you a way to upgrade the firmware on their units.

To me, off-camera flash is fun, and it's very sexy, but on-camera flash has its virtues, too. Going with bounce flash from a single on-camera light does not require that I haul an entire lighting bag along with me. It's fast and simple and much much easier to learn. TTL, like A mode on your camera, has its place. TTL, like A, is good for when you need speed or you're moving through varying lighting conditions. M on the flash, like M on the camera, is for when you need precision and consistency. With an OEM flash, you have all the tools for going both on- and off-camera and the best future compatibility, build quality and reliability. Not to mention service, a decent used market resale value, and generally a known compatibility with other 3rd party products that are designed for it.

So don't worry too much about having "wasted" money. I'd highly recommend looking at Neil van Niekerk's Tangents website as well as the Strobist. He can teach you a lot about using on-camera flash and bouncing, and some of the merits of TTL.

[inkista]

Back in the old days, using optical slaves and synch cables was used by everyone other than some high-end pros. This technology might not be as sexy as radio triggers, but works quite well.

Should I mention that the Yongnuo speedlights mostly all come with built-in optical slave modes? The S1 mode fires on the first flash burst, the S2 mode fires on the 2nd one (i.e., can ignore a preflash). It's one of the reasons I adore my YN-560. I can use it off-camera with my Powershot S90 this way.

However, in the OP's case, his Sony speedlight doesn't have a PC sync port, (and neither does the NEX) so we're talking one hotshoe adapter just to use an optical slave or two to use a sync cable, and we're then halfway to the price of cheap radio triggers.

[Manfred M]

Should I mention that the Yongnuo speedlights mostly all come with built-in optical slave modes? The S1 mode fires on the first flash burst, the S2 mode fires on the 2nd one (i.e., can ignore a preflash). It's one of the reasons I adore my YN-560. I can use it off-camera with my Powershot S90 this way.

However, in the OP's case, his Sony speedlight doesn't have a PC sync port, (and neither does the NEX) so we're talking one hotshoe adapter just to use an optical slave or two to use a sync cable, and we're then halfway to the price of cheap radio triggers.

I was thinking of using the built-in pop up flash as a trigger to start with using the optical slave function on the flash. You are right though and auxillary shoe and synch cable are going to cost some money. I haven't priced cheap triggers / receivers (one would be required for the camera and a second one for the flash) so don't know what they cost (I use PocketWizards, which are not exactly inexpensive). I played with the infra-red units a few years back but while they were fairly inexpensive, I found them to be unreliable (hence the move to PocketWizards).

[inkista]

Here in the US, a set of RF-602s or RF-603s is about $30. Cactus V5s are about $60/set. Hotshoe adapters are about $10, and a cheap PC sync cable is about $10. A TTL cable about $30. So you can see why a lot of first-time Strobists are told to just go for the "PovertyWizard fleabay" triggers. They're all 2.4GHz RF units, and more reliable than the infrared units or optical slaves, if not quite up to bullet-proof PocketWizard standards. I've gotten >200m range out of my 602s.

I just bought a set of the Yongnuo YN-622c (Canon) which are the cheap equivalent of the TTL PW units: TTL, HSS, 2nd curtain, and remote commanding through the flash command menu (you have to have a post-2007 Canon body and MkII EX speedlights or a 3rd party that can be commanded through the menu), and the ability to mix M and groups/ratios. Also with some manual-only lights through the PC sync port output, they can do "supersync" (tail sync/hypersync). They're about $90/pr.

Of course, they've already gone through at least one bug-fix round. The first batch didn't work on 1-series cameras. Ah, the joys of reverse engineering.

[Castor Krieg]

To me, off-camera flash is fun, and it's very sexy, but on-camera flash has its virtues, too. Going with bounce flash from a single on-camera light does not require that I haul an entire lighting bag along with me. It's fast and simple and much much easier to learn. TTL, like A mode on your camera, has its place. TTL, like A, is good for when you need speed or you're moving through varying lighting conditions. M on the flash, like M on the camera, is for when you need precision and consistency. With an OEM flash, you have all the tools for going both on- and off-camera and the best future compatibility, build quality and reliability. Not to mention service, a decent used market resale value, and generally a known compatibility with other 3rd party products that are designed for it.

So don't worry too much about having "wasted" money. I'd highly recommend looking at Neil van Niekerk's Tangents website as well as the Strobist. He can teach you a lot about using on-camera flash and bouncing, and some of the merits of TTL.

Once again, many thanks for taking your time to write all of this. Great thing about picking a new hobby is the amount you learn in a short time! I will check the websites to learn more about on-camera flash.

Regarding possible cross-talk - I am afraid about damage to the camera and/or flash, but as I understand it as the flash is removed from the camera the only damage can come from the camera frying the radio trigger, correct? Is there any piece of information I should be using when determining whether I can use a given radio transmitter e.g. voltage value for the camera hotshoe (to protect the trasmitter), voltage value for flash (to protect the receiver)? Sorry if it makes little sense, I am writing out of the top of my head.

[inkista]

Regarding possible cross-talk - I am afraid about damage to the camera and/or flash, but as I understand it as the flash is removed from the camera the only damage can come from the camera frying the radio trigger, correct?

Not quite.

The main danger is to the camera or the triggers from the flash--and that's only if you're using an older vintage flash. Most modern new flashes that are designed to be used on a digital camera (and obviously, the flash you have is one of these), have a trigger voltage of <10V. For example, the YN-560 was measured by speedlights.net to have a trigger voltage of 3.25V. Most Nikon and Canon speedlights are in the 4V range.

It's older flashes from a few decades back, like, say, the Vivitar 283 or (non-HV) 285 that can have the 300V+ sync voltages that can fry your camera's hotshoe or your triggers. Canon and Nikon hotshoes are limited to 250V. mft hotshoes are reportedly limited to 20V. The Cactus V5 triggers can take 300V. The Yongnuo RF-602s are limited to 11V. On Sonys, 24V has been mentioned as the limit.

If you're nervous about the sync voltage of the flash you're using, you can also get a Wein Safe Sync which will limit the voltage. But given that your flash is a brand new Sony model specifically designed for your camera, I'd say you have nothing to worry about. If you're still nervous, maybe measure the sync voltage of your flash, yourself.

[Castor Krieg]

Once again thanks a lot for help. Since, as you mentioned, I have a brand new flash from the same manufacturer as the camera I will simply test the triggers in a store to see if they work.

[tclune]

I have and like the Yongnou 603s, but just to avoid getting the feeling that that is the only manual trigger in town, you may want to take a look at this useful list: http://flashhavoc.com/flash-trigger-guide-manual/ FWIW

[ETA: The reduced synch speed reported for the Yongnous seems to be camera-specific. I have used these transceivers with a D50, D5000, and D800. It was only the D800 where I had to slow the synch speed from 1/200 down to 1/150 to allow proper flash synch.]

[Castor Krieg]

One more question, since as it was mentioned the NEX-6 doesn't have a PC cable (however I think HVL-F60M has one) - can I use this set-up instead:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maxsima-Mete...1979307&sr=8-1

and two of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hama-Hot-Sho...bxgy_ph_text_y

To connect from my camera to my flash? The drawback is the total costs comes up to ~20GBP, which is the cost of cheap wireless transmitters. From your experience which one is better for a beginner? Strobist blog recommends to start with cable, however as I mentioned the price is more or less the same...

[tclune]

I really hate cables, especially when they are attached to equipment that I don't want to pull to the ground. It ain't that hard to use RF transceivers. I would say to bite the bullet and get the wireless triggers.

[inkista]

I have and like the Yongnou 603s, but just to avoid getting the feeling that that is the only manual trigger in town, you may want to take a look at this useful list: http://flashhavoc.com/flash-trigger-guide-manual/ FWIW

Yup. That's a great list. If you want to see the similar TTL trigger list, that's here, but AFAIK, all the Sony ones are for the Minolta hotshoe, not the new ISO-compliant one.

[ETA: The reduced synch speed reported for the Yongnous seems to be camera-specific. I have used these transceivers with a D50, D5000, and D800. It was only the D800 where I had to slow the synch speed from 1/200 down to 1/150 to allow proper flash synch.]

Maybe it's a full-frame thing. I did fine with the 602s on my 50D up to x-sync speed (1/250), but had the 1/3EV slowdown (I'm assuming from propogation delay) with my 5Dii from 1/200s -> 1/160s.

One more question, since as it was mentioned the NEX-6 doesn't have a PC [port] (however I think HVL-F60M has one)

Actually, I looked in its manual, and it doesn't look like it does.

- can I use this set-up instead...

Yes. That's what I meant by two hotshoe adapters and a sync cable. And how the cost would be pretty much the same as radio triggers.

The tradeoffs here are that wireless is always more convenient than wired as connections go. With the cable, you'd have to make sure you could hide it somehow, you'd have more limited range, and working with multiple lights can become cumbersome (you'd need splitters). But. A cabled connection is more robust--you never know when radio interference might be an issue. 2.4GHz is what a lot of stuff (like wi-fi) runs on, too.

If you are going to go this route, I'd actually suggest looking for adapters that aren't PC adapters, but rather 3.5mm minijack adapters--that way a simple audio minijack cable (usual headphones connector) can be used instead, and they're easier to find, often cheaper than PC cables, more robust, and you can always roll your own if you have to.

From your experience which one is better for a beginner? Strobist blog recommends to start with cable, however as I mentioned the price is more or less the same...

I've never used a cabled PC connection. I just rolled straight to dumb optical and radio triggers because of the cost. But I have lately begun to use a TTL cable (which connects hotshoe-to-hotshoe with all the contacts), because sometimes I want HSS and 2nd curtain sync and remote commanding. Unfortunately, the Sony iso-compliant hotshoe is so new, I haven't seen anybody making TTL gear specifically for it. So, you'd be back to hotshoe adapters and using an Alpha/Minolta shoe cable.

This is one of the main problems with the Strobist blog and all the "Lighting 101" stuff. Hobby started that blog back in 2006, and back then, nobody was doing off-camera lighting with speedlights, and the huge proliferation we've seen of radio triggers and cheap manual flashes and modifiers hadn't happened. At that point, a cable was $30, and PocketWizards were $200 a pop, and that was pretty much it. So your choices were $30 vs. $400, which is one of the reasons Hobby recommended going for the cable. He also assumed that anyone reading the blog early on was another pro photojournalist who knew how to do on-camera flash, but didn't know how to do off-camera: so they already owned a higher-end (Nikon) camera and a (Nikon) flash [which was what he used], both of which would be equipped with PC ports. He had no idea the blog would be read by hobbyists with entry-level dSLRs and digital flashes, neither of which had PC ports on them, (at the time, I'd purchased the then top-of-the-line Canon 580EX flash for $450. It had no PC sync port on it. Two years later, Canon came out with the 580EXII which did).

Hobby's done his best to go back and update a lot of those entries (e.g., he's now labelled the Vivitar 285HV as a piece of junk not worth your time, while at the time he pretty much created the market for the unit, not knowing that Vivitar had sold the rights to use their name and was no longer manufacturing flashes), but a few things slip through the cracks. Like his complete pan of the YN-560, because at that point we didn't really know that Yongnuo treats its early adopters like beta testers, but as they grew, they would improve their quality control, add a warranty, and fix issues with their gear with new releases. And Hobby has a (completely justified) thing about the way Chinese manufacturing is run.

If you're looking at a Strobist entry about hardware, I'd highly recommend always checking the date of that entry, and if it's more than two years old, go to the Strobist Flickr group discussions for more in depth information. The landscape for Strobists changes rapidly every year as more and more gear comes through the door just for us. Canon's RF speedlights last year were a huge surprise, and chances are good Nikon will follow it up with their own solution soon, at which point everyone else may follow.

My other peeve about the Strobist is not with the blog itself, but by the way people reduce it to simplistic thinking that on-camera=bad; off-camera=one true way. TTL=idiotic; Manual=one true way. You'll hear a lot of denigration of on-camera and TTL use--and then come to find the folks pooh-poohing it don't actually use it and have never learned how to control TTL and have no idea what to do in an event situation. These are often the same poseurs who claim they shoot in M all the time and make fun of anyone who uses automated modes for anything. 10 years ago, they would probably have been the people saying they prefer to shoot natural light because flash looks like crap.

To me, every camera or flash mode and feature is a tool. You may use some more than others, but if the tool is in your toolbox, you should probably at least look at it and experiment with it a little and try to master it to see if it's useful or not. Yes, there are times TTL is an exercise in frustration. There are also times it's a godsend. Same with M. Same with FP/HSS. Same with prime lenses. Or tripods. Or any piece of gear, really. It all depends on what the shot and the gear is.

I'm not so sure my advice of learning on-camera will be as good for you as a NEX shooter as it would be for a dSLR shooter, though. A full-sized speedlight on a mirrorless camera can sometimes make a very unwieldy combo. I never use on-camera flash with my Panasonic G3, since the size/weight of the triggers is a much better fit for such a small/light camera. But it's at least worth trying to see. Especially since it won't cost you anything in additional gear.

My last piece of advice is that before you plunge down the rabbit hole with the Strobist, make sure you have one basic skill under your belt first: be comfortable shooting in M mode. I don't mean be shooting in M mode all the time. But you should know how/when to override the auto nanny-stuff when it gets in your way by flipping into full Manual. You want to be in full control of ambient photography before you hit flash, because all flash does is add more factors to juggle. And learning to light requires relearning how you think about exposure. Your meter's needle is no longer the guide you might think it is (it can only measure the light in the scene. The flash isn't in the scene yet). And which mode you have the camera in can have a profound effect on how the flash behaves. Typically A/S modes assume you want fill flash (i.e., the balance is mostly ambient, a small amount of flash), while P mode assumes you want fill in good light, but the main illumination to be flash in low light. M is the only camera mode where you have full control in deciding how you want to balance the two light sources.

[Manfred M]

I don't know how talented the Sony camera is when it comes to triggering off-camera flash. I can only look at my own experience with Nikon, where the cameras have a "Commander" mode that allows one to control the individual flashes from a menu setting, including setting the off camera flashes in groups using the built-in flash as the communications element. Exposure of the off camera flashes (using TTL metering or totally manually) can all be done remotely via the camera's menu.

The moment you go to cheap triggers you will have to set your off-camera flashes manually, just like you would if you had studio lights without having the either Skyports (Elinchrom) or PocketWizard RF links.

[Castor Krieg]

Thanks Kathy, as always you give great advice and I am learning a ton here! I can definitely see the on-camera flash being useful, but I see your point about it being unwieldy, it is truly an exercise to hold it given how tiny the NEX is. I have my gf coming for a visit tomorrow, so I will probably spend most of the day learning with her how to bounce flash off the wall while making a portrait.

GrumpyDiver - AFAIK the NEX-6 cannot set off the flash using on-camera. There seems to be a setting for changing the intensity of the flash, so I tried to make it set off F60M, no luck. Maybe there are some additional settings, I will check later.

[jcuknz]

A mass of fascinating information on this thread but if you are working at home it can be very simple as when I started with my Nikon bridge camera and used an optical trigger to set off my Sunpak flash. I hid the camera flash from the subject as I wanted a 'single remote flash' result ....I have progressed no further in practical terms although now I have YN flash and I still use the camera's flash to trigger its built in optical trigger. I prefer to use ambient light so my use of flash is limited to providing light when the ambient is insufficient and I cannot use a slow shutter speed becuase I'm hand holding ....I know I should progress, experiment, and learn more but what I have is adequate for my needs ... maybe it is all you really need? You have splurged on an expensive flash and all you need is an optical trigger which come in various forms, one to suit the sync cable of my ancient Sunpak, others which trigger by the hotshoe mounting of more modern flash units, I have both from pre-YN days

Working with digital is easy with instant review to see what the last exposure was and adjust the flash, moving it closer or further from the subject or by its controls or else by hanging facial tissue[s] between flash and subject

Working with the flash on the camera there is the 'old fashioned' way of working by Guide Numbers ... say your flash gives a good result at ten feet using the f/5.6 aperture that means you have a Guide Number of 56 and working at other distances you simply divide the flash to subject distance into the GN and the answer is the aperture to use ....shutter speed so long as you are at or below 'sync speed' doesn't affect matters until you begin to mix ambient and flash.

Flash can be about the simplest way to take photos or can be very complicated as when I tried unsuccessfully[ reliably ] to connect more than one flash with cables many moons ago. Going the strobist way before it was invented? Back in the fifties
As a professional then I couldn't afford to have 'misses' so I forgot the idea and reverted to 'hot lights'.

Never experienced TTL and I am sure it is a wonderful way to work but I am surviving without it