The Wein Peanut Experiment with Canon Speedlites

[Lotto]

Thanks to Curtis's excellent review on the Sunpak 383, I bought myself one. Along with the flash, I got the Wein Peanut Slave, to use with the Sunpak off camera. Anyway, I read that the Canon Speedlites don't like optical slaves, how they fire once then you have to turn on/off to reset them. I wanted to test that on my Speedlites. To my surprise, the Wein Peanut works, and works rather well.

The Peanut. This is the cheap one--Wein PN Peanut Photo Slave with a 100' Range. Not the digital version, for about $18 from Amazon. The connector is PC female, plug straight into a standard PC cord with male plug end.


The experiment. At first I had a little problem with the connection at the PN. Seems to me, the center terminal is a bit larger than the standard sync port. After 'reconditioned' my sycn cables, everything went smooth. At below picture, all speedlights are triggered by a AB400 on sync cord. For easy viewing, I tape color fiters to front of the flash heads. At left, the Sunpak 383, with the Peanut plugged in it's supplied sync cord. At center and right, the 580 and 430 are connected to the Peanut through the Alien Bees's 15' sync cord. They all fire as soon as the Peanut sees a flash signal.


The range test. Wein Peanut claims the indoor range is 100'. In the test below, I started very close, then walked backward till I hit the wall, about 45-50' away. 580 on camera in M, 1/128 power; 430 on light stand, M 1/32 with the Peanut. I took 10 shots at different distances, the 430 didn't misfire once.


One thing that was kind of odd I noticed was, when I use master/slave in manual mode with a sync cord, connecting the sync cord to the camera or pushing the test button on the master unit will fire both flashes. But with the Wein Peanut plugged in the end the cord, the master unit works fine, the slave unit never fires.

Overall result, I am impressed because the Peanut works.

[TMR Design]

Thanks for posting this Lotto. That's great to hear tha tis works. So there's no problem at all getting the 580EX to fire from the AB400? If that's the case then this should be a sticky because other threads and posts of this kind always yield negative results. This is great to hear.

[TMR Design]

Is this the Peanut you have Lotto?

http://www.amazon.com/Wein-Peanut-Ph...&s=electronics

[Lotto]

Robert, that's the one I got. Yeah, it was hard to believe at first for me from what I read so far. I just ran the trigger tests once more this morning, still works. In fact, the Peanut is quite sensitive, with it connected the 580 sitting on the desk infornt of me, I could trigger it with the 430 at minimum power (1/64), behind my back and in my shirt

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by Lotto

Robert, that's the one I got. Yeah, it was hard to believe at first for me from what I read so far. I just ran the trigger tests once more this morning, still works. In fact, the Peanut is quite sensitive, with it connected the 580 sitting on the desk infornt of me, I could trigger it with the 430 at minimum power (1/64), behind my back and in my shirt

Wow, excellent. Thank you.

[akiwi]

I have a Metz optical trigger that also works perfectly with my 580. I tries some other triggers from Hama which didn't work at all or only fired once.

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by akiwi

I have a Metz optical trigger that also works perfectly with my 580. I tries some other triggers from Hama which didn't work at all or only fired once.

Yes, I had heard many times that the Hama did not work. At this time I have no real reason to get one but I recall that when I was all hell bent on things being wireless I found that in all the research there didn't seem to be anyone endorsing a product that worked well, all the time. At best, they were iffy.

[SkipD]

Robert, I use the Peanut slaves with my AlienBees units when out of doors. Often when outdoors, the built-in slaves cannot see the master flash. I connect a Peanut to each one that is having trouble triggering and aim the Peanut at the master flash.

Of course, when I get a full set of Pocket Wizard equipment I won't need the Peanuts any more. That is something for the unplannable future, though.

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by SkipD

Robert, I use the Peanut slaves with my AlienBees units when out of doors. Often when outdoors, the built-in slaves cannot see the master flash. I connect a Peanut to each one that is having trouble triggering and aim the Peanut at the master flash.

Of course, when I get a full set of Pocket Wizard equipment I won't need the Peanuts any more. That is something for the unplannable future, though.

Thanks Skip. Have you also tried it with a 580EX and had good results. I'm curious as to whether results are consistent from user to user.

[SkipD]

Originally Posted by TMR Design

Thanks Skip. Have you also tried it with a 580EX and had good results. I'm curious as to whether results are consistent from user to user.

The only Speedlite I own is a 420EX. It doesn't have a port for triggering it other than the hot shoe connection. It doesn't even have a place for an external power supply to plug in.

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by SkipD

The only Speedlite I own is a 420EX. It doesn't have a port for triggering it other than the hot shoe connection. It doesn't even have a place for an external power supply to plug in.

Yes, I know it doesn't have a sync jack. I thought perhaps you had it on a hot shoe adapter feeding it synch through a PC jack.

[SkipD]

Originally Posted by TMR Design

Yes, I know it doesn't have a sync jack. I thought perhaps you had it on a hot shoe adapter feeding it synch through a PC jack.

I never mix my Speedlite in with the studio lighting system. There's no need, as I have enough lights for the studio without it. That makes life much simpler in the scheme of lighting.

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by SkipD

I never mix my Speedlite in with the studio lighting system. There's no need, as I have enough lights for the studio without it. That makes life much simpler in the scheme of lighting.

Hey Skip,

I didn't mean to imply that you were mixing. Many people get there flash off camera without the use of the off shoe cord and ETTL and just go with manual and a sync cord feeding a hot shoe. I was just curious.

[SkipD]

Originally Posted by TMR Design

Hey Skip,

I didn't mean to imply that you were mixing. Many people get there flash off camera without the use of the off shoe cord and ETTL and just go with manual and a sync cord feeding a hot shoe. I was just curious.

Ahhh.... I just use the Speedlite either on the camera or at the end of the short Canon cord. I've never tried to use it truly remote from the camera.

[FlashZebra]

I tried more than one inexpensive Wein optical slave (but not specifically a "peanut"), and none worked in a reliable manner with a Canon 550EX unit. I was not using the so called "digital" optical slaves. In addition, this was with all flash units set to manual, so the preflash was not an issue.

So, you may have gotten good function on with a particular Canon flash unit, and a particular Wein peanut flash, but I would suggest that others not surprised when their particular Canon speedlight and Wein optical slaves do not work in such a harmonious manner.

Enjoy! Lon