Questions on my two new YN560-IV's...

So I'm new to off camera flash and very excited to get to experimenting with key, fill, and rim lighting. This will be a good step up from my Canon 430ex II. I've read through the manual but the Chinglish is very difficult to understand. I am planning to buy two more of these units if all goes well.

1. I understand that these flashes are manual only, and when using the slave mode with ETTL from the 430 I would want to use S2 instead of S1. is there any reason to not always use S2 in that case? Is it possible that the flashes wont trigger if shooting manual because the YNs disregard the flash as the preflash?

2. For Tx and Rx mode: can I use the on-camera YN unit to transmit the signal but not have it actually emit a flash? How do I go about doing this?

3. What is Multi Mode and why would you use it?

4. What is the difference between channels and groups?

5. How do you use the IV to change the settings of an off camera unit?

6. For an event like a party or a wedding, is it faster to make changes to the off camera units with a Yn560TX or is using another 560-IV on top of the camera just as easy?

Thanks!

A channel is the discrete radio frequency used by the transmitter and receiver for communication. A group is one or more flashes treated as one unit; they have the same power setting.

An example of multi, a strobe fired X number of times at Y Hz:

https://photography-on-the.net …showthread.php?​p=17387054

Use S1 for manual flash. I know my Yongnuo times out in S2 when used with my wife's PowerShot because of the lag between the preflash and exposure.

1. If you used s2 while in manual mode the slaved flash would just not fire. S2 ignorant the "preflash" but what it's really doing is just ignoring the first instance of flash. It doesn't actually know it's a "preflash". So you must use s1 while in manual.

2. I haven't looked at the 4's manual so I can't say for sure but there should be a way to do this. That way may just be making the on camer flash it's own group and Turning that groups off. Unfortunately I can not get the manual to open in my phone to look and see if I can deciifur the badly written manual

Edit: ok so it would seem the 560iv, while in tx mode, can be set independent of any groups. To do this cycle through the groups till no group letter is shown. That is the on camera flash.

3. Oldventureface got that one.

4. A channel is what the flashes use to talk to each other. A tx and rx must be on the same channel in order to fire. So if you have two people using the same system they can use different channels and not be firing each other's flashes.

A groups is a flash or set of flases in that channel but you want them to have different setting from each other. So say you have a main light and a full light. You don't want them both to be the same power. So you put tr main light in group A and get that groups 1/1. You want to fill to be a quarter the main lights power so you put the full in group B and set that group to 1/4.

5. Put the on camera 560iv into tx mode and the off camera in rx mode on which ever group you want to use it with. Then on the tx you go to the group then off camera flash is on and change the settings.

6. No clue. They should both be the same speed depending on how tx mode on the 560iv works. But again, don't own and can't access the manual.

Edit: watched a quick video on the 560iv and personally I think the standalone tx would be a little faster.

A side comment: even with your two current 560IV flashes, and especially if you are considering getting more of these, you should definitely get a dedicated controller for these flashes, YN560-TX (~40$ on ebay). The major advantages:

- You don't have to waste one of your expensive flashes by keeping it on top of your camera. Often you don't need an on-camera flash (home studio etc.), so having to use one only because of its controller feature is a waste. Instead, use the controller 560-TX to controll all of your flashes.

- 560-IV can only control 3 groups of flashes, whereas 560-TX can control up to 6 groups - a major advantage for a home studio, where you typically need more than three groups (key, fill-in, hair, background etc. lights)

Thanks all. Keep the comments coming.