You love your on-camera flash, but you’re beginning to realize its limitations. Flat facial features, limited direction and distance, and almost no creativity allowed. You need to step up to wireless strobes. Lot’s of people are in that boat, but don’t want to pay more money for a wireless flash system than they did for their camera.

Luckily, there is a solution. Several, in fact!

Nikon and Canon both have some amazing flash units, and I’ve both seen and created some pretty intricate, auto’magic’ flash setups, in particular using Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS). They boggle the mind, but you camera somehow keeps track of it all for you. Unfortunately you can’t get those systems without dropping at least hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars, but there are several alternatives that you can pick up for pocket change (by comparison).

Essentially, if you want to use an off camera flash as a strobe, all you need is a flash that is capable of being manually controlled, and a way to wireless trigger that flash. I’ve come up with some combos that might be helpful in your quest. These are essentially brand-independent solutions that **should** work with most DSLR cameras.

Flash Units:
The following is a list of inexpensive flashes, mostly discontinued, that you can find used. The last is a resurrection of a truly old-school flash by Vivitar which is actually being produced again and can be purchased new.

Nikon – SB-24, SB-25, SB-26, SB-28 (used / all discontinued)
Canon – 420EZ, 430EZ, 540EZ (used / all discontinued)
Vivitar – 285HV (new)

Wireless Triggers:
Here are some wireless triggers you can get on the cheap. All of these are optical triggers, meaning they look for the light from your on-camera flash in order to know when to fire. Cheap and dirty (some can be had for under $10); you hook them up to an external flash and away you go.

Seagull SYK-4 Optical Slave Trigger with PC Sync Socket
Speedotron DS-1 Flash Activated Digital Slave Trigger with Hot Shoe Mount

Before purchasing, verify that the trigger you choose can talk to your external flash. If it’s a hot-shoe mount trigger, this means you will mount your flash onto the trigger, and they will talk to eachother through that mount. Easy, this works for most brands (save for Sony and Minolta on occasion). Both of the above triggers are in this category.

Other triggers use a PC sync or other cable-based manner of communicating between the trigger and the flash.

Light Stand and Adapter:
Anything will work here. Honestly, if you want to go on the cheap, you can gaff tape your strobe to anything that’s handy: light post, a fluted Roman column, your left forearm (see photo at beginning of post), etc…

If you want to do it in a more refined manner, you can buy any standard light stand for anywhere between $15-50, depending on how heavy-duty of a stand you want. However… since the mounting systems on stands are meant for professional strobes, you will need an Hot Shoe Adapter (preferably with an umbrella bracket also). These little guys can be had for around $15 as well. The hot shoe adapter/bracket allows you to attach your flash to a stand, and if you want diffused, or “soft” light, it also allows the use of an umbrella.

A few options on the Hot Shoe Umbrella Adapter:

Studio Pro Swivel Bracket
Interfit Photographic Umbrella Holder with Hotshoe Adapter

Umbrella:
This is, of course, an optional part. But after looking at your photographs, I can bet you’ll be extremely glad you sprung the extra few dollars for it. For the umbrella, again, most anything will work, most stuff can be had for $10 at the bottom end, but you’d do best to spring for one that is “convertible”, meaning it will have a black/silver cover so you can bounce light out of it (diffused, but slightly harder shadows) when the cover is removed you can shoot straight through it (softer light, more spread).

Adorama 40 Convertible Umbrella

Now… Shoot!
Go for it. That pretty much completes the list.

For a total of about $150, you can have your own professional-esque wireless strobe. Compare that to $700 for a bulky, low-end strobe kit that leaves you stuck in the studio (or within 100′ of the nearest AC power outlet), and you’ve got yourself a rather screaming bargain, capable of creating some beautiful lighting!

Other Resources
When you’re ready to start pimping out your new wireless strobe system, check out the Strobist Blog. This is probably THE most content-rich site to be found on this topic. A wealth of great ideas.

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