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Has anyone used an off camera flash in slave mode using flash in their mobile. Just wondered if it works well as phone flashes seem to be slower.
and please use their services
Slave flash with mobile phone.
- Thread starter Orangecroc
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You got me thinking 
I tested it using an iPhone 7 and a Nikon SB900 and a Yongnuo SB460-II (no longer made, but the Amazon Basics flash for £26 looks suspiciously similar https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Electronic-Flash-DSLR-Cameras/dp/B01I09WHLW ). The short answer is no - it won't produce a synchronized flash and produce useful light for your image. However, I did notice some interesting things:-
The Nikon SU-4 slave mode on the SB900 has two variants. When the flash is set to remote, and manual, it fires at the manually set power when it sees another flash. By feathering the switch on the back of the fluorescent lamp so it buzzed, the SB900 would fire replicating the buzz. However if you put an SU-4 enabled flash into Auto mode, on remote, it mimics the duration of the light that triggers it exactly. A flickering fluorescent light produces a flickering almost constant light out of the SB900 too - until it empties the capacitors at which point it will complain loudly giving off 3 beeps, followed a couple of seconds later by the re-charge beep (the 3 beeps Gary Fong thinks are Nikon's way of telling you, that you nailed the exposure). I don't know if I can make any use of this (it was originally designed to make the flash mimic the output of the master, as the light delivered by a speed-light is a function of the duration).
However, there is a nifty solution from Godox that will enable you to use just about any flash from speed-light to studio lights with your phone - http://flashhavoc.com/godox-a1-released/ It even has it's own small flash built in. Even if you have no intention of using your phone as the camera, the app provides a nice useful interface for controlling the power on your Godox flashes with compatible receivers (it apparently works with 2.4Ghz and 433Mhz systems) and the colour on the Godox LED lights.
I tested it using an iPhone 7 and a Nikon SB900 and a Yongnuo SB460-II (no longer made, but the Amazon Basics flash for £26 looks suspiciously similar https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Electronic-Flash-DSLR-Cameras/dp/B01I09WHLW ). The short answer is no - it won't produce a synchronized flash and produce useful light for your image. However, I did notice some interesting things:-- You can trigger a flash using the LED on the phone.
- The YN460-II slave cell is a lot more sensitive than the SB900's - I could trigger the YN460 with an LED torch from about half a metre, but the SB900 would only fire if I covered the detector cell with the torch (a 1200 lumens Klaris ST15 ) on full power.
- The YN460 would trigger from the LED on the phone when the phone takes a picture, but it's not at the right time, and does not show up on the resulting image. I messed about with the slave modes but the YN460 S2 mode needs 3 or 4 flashes before it triggers (it's meant to ignore the pre-flash and data signals from things like Nikon's AWL system, but it doesn't work - it's never worked for me in any scenario). The only way I can get the 460 to fire in this way is by pulsing an LED torch at it rapidly.
- The SB900 would not trigger from the phone's "flash" at all.
- Both lights would fire in response to a 20 Watt fluorescent curly bulb switching on, and here's where it gets interesting and reminded me of an (I think unique) feature of the SB900 slave mode.
The Nikon SU-4 slave mode on the SB900 has two variants. When the flash is set to remote, and manual, it fires at the manually set power when it sees another flash. By feathering the switch on the back of the fluorescent lamp so it buzzed, the SB900 would fire replicating the buzz. However if you put an SU-4 enabled flash into Auto mode, on remote, it mimics the duration of the light that triggers it exactly. A flickering fluorescent light produces a flickering almost constant light out of the SB900 too - until it empties the capacitors at which point it will complain loudly giving off 3 beeps, followed a couple of seconds later by the re-charge beep (the 3 beeps Gary Fong thinks are Nikon's way of telling you, that you nailed the exposure). I don't know if I can make any use of this (it was originally designed to make the flash mimic the output of the master, as the light delivered by a speed-light is a function of the duration).
However, there is a nifty solution from Godox that will enable you to use just about any flash from speed-light to studio lights with your phone - http://flashhavoc.com/godox-a1-released/ It even has it's own small flash built in. Even if you have no intention of using your phone as the camera, the app provides a nice useful interface for controlling the power on your Godox flashes with compatible receivers (it apparently works with 2.4Ghz and 433Mhz systems) and the colour on the Godox LED lights.
OP
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Cool, great information there. Your additional knowledge about the flashes and sensors helped you do much better tests than I had. Definitely explains why I couldn't make it work, and why it is not really useful being used that way.You got me thinking
- You can trigger a flash using the LED on the phone.
- The YN460-II slave cell is a lot more sensitive than the SB900's - I could trigger the YN460 with an LED torch from about half a metre, but the SB900 would only fire if I covered the detector cell with the torch (a 1200 lumens Klaris ST15 ) on full power.
- The YN460 would trigger from the LED on the phone when the phone takes a picture, but it's not at the right time, and does not show up on the resulting image. I messed about with the slave modes but the YN460 S2 mode needs 3 or 4 flashes before it triggers (it's meant to ignore the pre-flash and data signals from things like Nikon's AWL system, but it doesn't work - it's never worked for me in any scenario). The only way I can get the 460 to fire in this way is by pulsing an LED torch at it rapidly.
- The SB900 would not trigger from the phone's "flash" at all.
- Both lights would fire in response to a 20 Watt fluorescent curly bulb switching on, and here's where it gets interesting and reminded me of an (I think unique) feature of the SB900 slave mode.
The Nikon SU-4 slave mode on the SB900 has two variants. When the flash is set to remote, and manual, it fires at the manually set power when it sees another flash. By feathering the switch on the back of the fluorescent lamp so it buzzed, the SB900 would fire replicating the buzz. However if you put an SU-4 enabled flash into Auto mode, on remote, it mimics the duration of the light that triggers it exactly. A flickering fluorescent light produces a flickering almost constant light out of the SB900 too - until it empties the capacitors at which point it will complain loudly giving off 3 beeps, followed a couple of seconds later by the re-charge beep (the 3 beeps Gary Fong thinks are Nikon's way of telling you, that you nailed the exposure). I don't know if I can make any use of this (it was originally designed to make the flash mimic the output of the master, as the light delivered by a speed-light is a function of the duration).
However, there is a nifty solution from Godox that will enable you to use just about any flash from speed-light to studio lights with your phone - http://flashhavoc.com/godox-a1-released/ It even has it's own small flash built in. Even if you have no intention of using your phone as the camera, the app provides a nice useful interface for controlling the power on your Godox flashes with compatible receivers (it apparently works with 2.4Ghz and 433Mhz systems) and the colour on the Godox LED lights.
the a1 release looks interesting though.