Optical Hot Shoe Slave with 420EX

I have just ordered my Canon 420EX flash. Can I attatch to it an optical hot shoe slave so that I can use off camera triggered by the built-in camera flash? Will it damage the flash?

Thanks

You'd have to find a hot shoe unit that's designed for Canon, to flash the 420EX when it senses another flash go off. I've not heard of one, but i'd be kinda interested if anyone else has.

I phoned Canon tech support and I was told that it was Ok to use a hot shoe slave with the flash. I will use it and will tell what happened.

When they said it was OK, they meant that it was not going to burn up the equipment. The degree of compatibility will vary depending on several things. A "regular" hot shoe slave trigger that fits onto the "foot" of the flash unit will trigger on the first flash pop from the main flash, but that is the pre-flash pop, not the main pop. There are special hot shoe slave triggers that will see the first pop, then wait, then go on the second pop.

---Bob Gross---

Where can I get one of these?