Studio lighting setup question...

Okay, I presently have a 40D with a 580EXII. Need your help confirming that this will work.

Over the winter I will be buying either the Elinchrom D-Lite 4 or AB800 kit to practice some studio portraits. From what I've read, either kit does support optical slaving, (hope that's the right term, meaning that if the lights see a flash, they'll fire).

That being said, I should be able to either use:
1.) The 580EXII on-shoe to fire the strobes
2.) The 580EXII being fired from a PocketWizard (or comparable device) to light either the background or hair, as well as firing the strobes.

This setup does make sense, right? I'm sure many use it, but I couldn't find any thread referring to one just like it. And I figured that since either strobe kit supports optical slaving, it would be sufficient.

(...and yes, I know that I won't get E-TTL from the PW... )

Any recommendations or suggestions?

Get a light meter and you are on your way. On the web, I've found various lighting diagrams that match what your are describing. I can't link you to any; adorama has a toutorial section on the site that shows some diagrams, and I think another is "Photoflex lighting school."

You can use those combinations as described. If you use the 580EX II on the hotshoe to fire the strobes, it will need to be in manual mode to avoid E-TTL pre-flash issues.

You may also want to consider buying an optical slave to plug into the PC socket of the 580EX II, just to give you another option.

Thanks for the help, guys! I thought this should work, but just wanted some second opinions...