3 Sigma Super DG flashes

Fires via your hot shoe? No flash works optically?

Drewmk2,

I understand the part about the MASTER flash being attached to the hot shoe. My question is how do I trigger the two Alien Bees when I'm using them as extra lights? Can they fire optically like my Sigma does when slaving to my on camera flash?

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Using an on-camera flash to trigger studio flash units is generally going to be an exercise in futility for a couple of reasons.

An on-camera flash frequently emits a "pre-flash" to gather exposure information. The studio flash units will probably trigger on this rather than waiting for the second (main) flash.

Even if you get the studio flash units to trigger at the right time, there's a potentially serious problem with exposure. The camera and built-in or hotshoe flash generally work together to control the exposure. External flash units can be triggered by the flash from the camera, but cannot be controlled by the camera. The typical result is extreme overexposure.

Even if you do manage to get the exposure controlled, the location of the on-camera flash is usually NOT the best for most lighting schemes.

My suggestion is to totally ignore any kind of automatically controlled (exposure, that is) flash system and use only the studio flash units in a studio type environment. The alternative is to go to a complete automatic system with flash units that communicate with each other to control the exposure all the way around the system.

I'm pretty sure that both the Sigma flashes and alien bees have an optical trigger. You'll need an external flash operating in manual mode to trigger the alien bees, try pointing the flash directly up on a low setting so it doesn't affect the pictures but still triggers the strobes. You'll need a light meter and a good understanding of studio lighting to use the alien bees, i'm told the book from http://lightingmagic.c​om is good (mine's on the way), and Scott (the author) is very knowledgable and helpful.