Bought my 1st strobe

I was going to buy a SB900 Flash but after thinking about it I decided to buy a alien Bee B800 strobe. At 285 bucks for it was a no brainer. I plan to buy a car power converter or a one of these http://www.alienbees.com/VIIsystem.html
so I am still at the same price of the Nikon SB900 flash. next will be a soft box.
The one thing I like about the Alien Bee it has a built in mount for umbrellas. I took it outside to see if my pop up flash would et it off and sure enough it does. I haven't tested the distance that the pop up will set it off. yes it comes with a sync cord but I know from past experiences that those cords come out easily , so I have to save up for pocket wizards soon

You probably already know this, but just in case - be sure to set the camera flash to Manual and reduce the power (1/16 or 1/8).

The camera flash triggers studio flashes fine - but the Nikon CLS system uses several preflashes to determine the correct exposure before opening the shutter. A studio flash will be triggered by the preflash and by the time the main flash comes along with the shutter open, the studio flash has finished. You have to switch to manual to get a single flash with the shutter open.