Optical slave

[Crashoran]

Will an AB800 key light have any trouble triggering another Alien Bee light on the background via it's optical slave? I'm not sure where the sensor is on the strobe and whether or not it needs to be pointed a certain way for it to "see" a flash.

[FlashZebra]

The sensor is on the back of the flash unit with all the controls. It cannot be positioned.

In small to medium sized rooms you will not have any problem with another flash firing the built in optical slave.

Enjoy! Lon

[Crashoran]

I'm gonna try to save some $$$ and replace the fill light with a large 5-in-1 reflector I already have. If the background light doesn't fire I guess I could also try switching it around and making the fill the slave.

[FlashZebra]

I'm gonna try to save some $$$ and replace the fill light with a large 5-in-1 reflector I already have. If the background light doesn't fire I guess I could also try switching it around and making the fill the slave.
Stop worrying about this, it will fire.

Enjoy! Lon

[Dream Merchant]

What Lon said.

Most studio units are great in that respect. On higher end models or brands, most of the time, they will fire reliably even when the heads are no in-line of sight with the slaves on another head.