Nikon speed light and active hot shoe

[Guy Mancuso]

Not sure I have the title even right here. So here is what I tried today and trying to figure a way around this. What I want to do is use the D800 as the flash commander to fire my D700 and maybe several other flashes which I know the commander can do this trick. But at the same time I would like to mix my Profotos in as well maybe more like my main light for instance.

Now I use the Air remote which is hot shoe based but what I ran into was once I popped the on board D800 flash the hot shoe goes inactive. Actually I even tried the PC outlet and it also went inactive. Now I could simply not have my menu settings correct but would love to figure out how I can use this in combination. What would be nice is using my battery powered Profoto a Acute 600r along with maybe 2 910 strobes which I'm thinking about getting. This could give me some serious 600 watt power with Nikon fill lights for various setups. Just like to be able to combine this up since photo eyes don't work very well outside at all.

Any ideas? And yes I have NOT pulled out the manual. LOL

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Hmmm no one has any ideas here.

 

[JoshMerwin]

Guy,
I think you would just have to either get air units as receivers for the Nikon strobes or get optical slaves attached to them. I can try it with the su-800(I think that's what it's called) commander later today and see if the Profoto would sync up with its built in slave. But from my experience with the D700/7000 etc, when you use the Nikon popup flash it's sends out a pre-flash to trigger the flash that exposes the image. So you will probably run into sync issues even if you figure out a work around that you are seeking. Nikon might have shut down the ability to trigger a flash with the hotshot or pc terminal when the popup flash is being used to avoid people from trying something like this because there's no way to make it work with the popup flash. I'm still waiting on my D800E, so I can't test it on that specific camera. But I'm sure the D7000 responds the same way with this.

 

[JoshMerwin]

Ok,
So I couldn't sleep and got up and did a quick test. To my pleasant surprise, it seems to work with the popup flash as the commander for the Nikon strobes and the Profoto slave firing the Profoto. I think I had the shutter speed at 1/200. Just to clarify, we're you trying to remotely fire a D700 camera as well or were you referring to a sb-700 flash? I assume it's a typo and you meant the flash... There was also no way for me to mount the Profoto air remote onto the hotshoe With the popup flash up and I couldn't find a pc terminal on the d7000, I'm surprised it doesn't have one, even more surprised that I didn't notice it until now. I hope this helps!

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Thanks Josh , yes I was trying to fire the D700 from the commander popup and with a Air remote in the hot shoe. And you maybe exactly correct Nikon just cuts off the hot shoe. I have a portrait today in my studio so I'm going to try it again as a test before hand. I would love to get 3 Nikon slaves and use my Acute R600 also at the same time for a completely battery setup for location work. I can set the Acute for optical slave so all is not lost. Just like to use the remote instead.

Also have a secret weapon lens to try also. Hopefully gets here before the subject. Lol

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Nothing it just won't work like this. Bummer

 

[JoshMerwin]

That's weird that it didn't work at all. Here's a pic showing both firing at the same time... You can call me later if you want help trying to get this to work. Anytime after 4pm works for me. 8325245501

Josh