Alien Bees Flash Sync

I have 4 alien bees and enough triggers to attach to each light and on camera. I was wondering, in the event my triggers broke or something, are there any disadvantages to using the alien bees' flash sensor sync? I would have a trigger on my camera, and another trigger on a light. The rest of the lights will be on optical slave.

One disadvantage I can think of is if there are other sources of flash in the area, they would trigger my lights accidentally. However, I'm in a studio by myself so that's not a problem usually. Any other problems? Does the flash sync speed have to be reduced to allow more time for the optical sensors to react to the flash?

In an indoor environment you should have no problems using the optical slaves unless for some reason the light from the "master" unit cannot reach the slave sensors in the other units. Outdoors, getting the optical slaves to function can be quite tricky.

You probably won't have to reduce your shutter speed to make the optical slaves function properly.

The only time I had trouble with the optical trigger was when one light was too close to a window and the ambient overpowered the triggering flash.

In a studio it will work fine. Never had a problem with sync either.

SkipD wrote in post #17423199
In an indoor environment you should have no problems using the optical slaves unless for some reason the light from the "master" unit cannot reach the slave sensors in the other units. Outdoors, getting the optical slaves to function can be quite tricky.

You probably won't have to reduce your shutter speed to make the optical slaves function properly.

dmward wrote in post #17423331
The only time I had trouble with the optical trigger was when one light was too close to a window and the ambient overpowered the triggering flash.

In a studio it will work fine. Never had a problem with sync either.

Thanks guys! Really helped a lot!