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what's the PC sync on flashes for? Anonymous
so i'm wondering what the PC sync port on small on camera flashes is for?

most cameras have a PC port to use studio flashes so why would you want a PC port on your small on camera flash?

is it just for camera without the port on the body? then you're going to have the flash fire as well and fuck with your other lighting unless you cover the flash head o_O
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>> Anonymous
Even though you might be trolling, as you probably are, using retarded faces and everything... Your flash and your camera both have pc ports so that you can fire your "on camera flash" away from your camera's hotshoe. Flash will fire in sync with your camera as long as it's connected to the PC port.
>> Anonymous
>>281975
wtf?

all studio strobes have pc ports

some speedlites have pc ports

some cameras have pc ports

industry standard for pro gear to talk to each other
>> Anonymous
>> so i'm wondering what the PC sync port on small on camera flashes is for?
>> so on camera flashes have one only to trigger them remotely? you don't use them for studio lights at all?
>> Anonymous
pocketwizards have a pc port out to sync with strobes, and sit in the hotshoe of the camera

so you can use pocketwizards to trigger studio strobes from a camera without a pc port
>> Anonymous
If you want to wire your flash remotely and your camera doesn't have a PC port, you can buy a hotshoe mount with a PC port.
>> Anonymous
>>281979
>>281975
Yes you can use them as studio lights. By remote/off-camera I meant either wired or wireless. If your camera doesn't have a PC port you can buy a hotshoe-PC adapter and plug the PC cord to your camera, and the other end to the flash unit's PC port.
>> Anonymous
>>281991
if the OP wanted useful info, he would have gone to google

here we talk in circles
>> Anonymous
What really bugs me is that stupid Nikon decided not to put a PC port on the SB600. So, if I want to use my pocketwizards in the field with small strobes, I have to use 800s, of which I only have one, get hotshoe cables, or use nikon's stupid CLS which never fucking works.
>> Anonymous
>>282046
The D80 can control it commander mode.
>> Anonymous
www.strobist.com
>> Anonymous
>>282046
Agreed. Indoors, CLS is awesome, but outside it sucks donkey balls in hell.
>> Anonymous
>>282841

any system that relies on an optical trigger sucks outdoors
>> Anonymous
OP does have a bit of a random point - do all cameras with pop-up-flashes and sync ports only fire on the sync port if the flash is up or a flash is plugged into the hotshoe? I was surprised when a friend with a 40D couldn't fire from sync without his flash up. I've got a 5D (no pop-up) so I'm not sure if that's standard or not or if it's a custom function option somewhere.

To answer the original question, sometimes you gotta use flashes like they're studio lights, and the PC sync tends to be cheaper and less bulky than attaching it to a hotshoe adapter to a sync source. It also makes it pretty much universal - you can use a sync cable to fire a speedlite from a large-format lens with no adaptors, for instance. And every adaptor in the chain adds to the likelyhood a connection is going to come loose.
>> Anonymous
>>282856
I don't have my 40d on me, but if I recall correctly, the pc-port on the 40d is always active when in M, Av, Tv, and P mode. It is disabled in some of the soccer mom modes.

Tell your 'friend' not to use green box mode.
>> Project !dashI8UpO.
>pop-up-flashes and sync ports only fire on the sync port if the flash is up
I thought it was weird that the D80 needed its flash raised for commander mode to work but the popup doesn't sync with the shutter. Tested with lighting from the side. The D80 has no PC cord socket so not sure about those.
>> Anonymous
>>282884I thought it was weird that the D80 needed its flash raised for commander mode to work but the popup doesn't sync with the shutter. Tested with lighting from the side. The D80 has no PC cord socket so not sure about those.

uh, the popup flash triggers the slaves optically, it has no effect on your exposure
>> Anonymous
On flashes that have internal optical slaves, you can use their sync port to trigger other flashes. I use it on the 80DX for a couple of sunpak 411s.
>> Project !dashI8UpO.
>>282886
Yeah, that's what I meant. Tested with lighting from one side so if my popup really didn't affect the exposure, the entire other side should be much darker. I only did this with a friend's SB-600. Does this mean that firing the flash wirelessly with the D80's commander mode will only work if the flash is within the popup flash's coverage? Or will it work even behind the camera, or while it's blocked by something else?
>> Anonymous
ok. here it is. the PC-sync cord on a flash can either be used to trigger other flashes or the flash itself. some reasons why you might use the PC sync cord on a flash are: using it off camera at a distance of over 17m from the camera, as TTL sync cords (1 in op's image) cannot work over this length because of signal degredation along the wire. other reasons why you would use it: as stated by someone above, you can use it to sync another slave without an optical trigger, or a set of studio strobes, ect. to explain to the person who was talking about the d80 commander mode, the flashes that you see fireing from the pop-up are the metering and control flashes. the camera first fires a samll pop from each group of strobes to determine the effect of the strobe on the exposure. it then sets teh power levels of the strobes by encoded infared light pulses. then it fires one more pulse to trigger the strobes at the set power level. the reason that the pop-up flash must be up is because while the strobes are controlled by an infared signal, the camera can only produce this signal by using the flash.

/thread