Use of Slave Flash Unit

[jimbvet]

I have a canon S1 IS which (sigh) does not have a hot shoe, and the flash is lacking in power. One solution I'm trying to work up is to use a slave flash with a Vivitar SL-2 mounted on a tripod, and a more powerful Albinar flash mounted on top of that. The flash I used to use with my Canon A-1 and it worked quite well, even with the telephoto lens.

When I set it all up, the flash on the camera flashes, the flash on the slave unit flashes, but I cannot see any difference in my photos. I've tried manual settings on the camera as well as various automatic settings, and I've altered the settings on the flash, but the pictures all seem to come out the same.

Is it a timing thing with the camera, or do you have any tips that I could try. My goal is to place the flash at an angle to my subjects to eliminate shadows and red-eye as well as to light up the room. I've tried various bounce settings as well, but so far I cannot produce any improvement over just plain using the small flash that is on the camera. Sure wish Canon had spent and extra buck or two and put at least a port to plug a flash into or a hot shoe.

Thanks in advance. I know I need a 20D and some good lenses to do all of the various photography shoots that I desire (such as no-flash indoor dog rings), but for the time being, finances dictate making the best of things.

Jim

[trog100]

I have a canon S1 IS which (sigh) does not have a hot shoe, and the flash is lacking in power. One solution I'm trying to work up is to use a slave flash with a Vivitar SL-2 mounted on a tripod, and a more powerful Albinar flash mounted on top of that. The flash I used to use with my Canon A-1 and it worked quite well, even with the telephoto lens.

When I set it all up, the flash on the camera flashes, the flash on the slave unit flashes, but I cannot see any difference in my photos. I've tried manual settings on the camera as well as various automatic settings, and I've altered the settings on the flash, but the pictures all seem to come out the same.

Is it a timing thing with the camera, or do you have any tips that I could try. My goal is to place the flash at an angle to my subjects to eliminate shadows and red-eye as well as to light up the room. I've tried various bounce settings as well, but so far I cannot produce any improvement over just plain using the small flash that is on the camera. Sure wish Canon had spent and extra buck or two and put at least a port to plug a flash into or a hot shoe.

Thanks in advance. I know I need a 20D and some good lenses to do all of the various photography shoots that I desire (such as no-flash indoor dog rings), but for the time being, finances dictate making the best of things.

Jim

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some camers have a multiple flash fire sequence.. a couple of low power fires for setting purposes then the real one which exposes the picture...

it sounds like your slave units are being tirggered by the "prefires".. basically they are going off before the shutter gets opened.. not an entirley uncommon problem it all depends on how the in-camera flash operates..

the name wein springs to mind.. they make slave tigger mounts that can be set to ignore the camers pre-fires.. useing the cameras little inbuilt flash to trigger more powerfull slaves works very well with cameras that have just a simple single fire flash.. u can light up the world if u want to and very cheaply.. but with prefire flashes it gets a little more complicated thow not impossible..

trog100