Wireless Trigger in an Umbrella set-up question

Hi Everybody-

Ok,,here is my issue and am looking for some advice or a solution.

I have a Nikon D200, a Nikon SB-600 and a Wescott 43" umbrella kit. I have a wireless trigger set on order and should be here today in the mail. My problem is that I figured out after I ordered the trigger that it is one of those receivers that is tall,,,,so,,,if I place the receiver in the stand,,the flash on top of it,,,I feel that it is going to place the head of the flash too high and that when the flash fires into the umbrella,,,the light it reflects/produces, will not be correct and therefore make it hard to get good light out of the setup.

So,,my thinking is, I could get an adapter to put the receiver on and let it hang on the side of the stand and place the flash in the light stand bracket and that could keep the flash head at a more appropriate height.

Since the trigger combo is just a cheap one from E-Bay,,,I'm not sure if the cable it comes with will be what I need or not. (I will just be using this for casual use and do not need or want to spend a lot of money on a wireless trigger combo).

So if you have any suggestions on products or techniques that could help me,,I would really appreciate it. Thanks for looking and taking the time.

Sincerely- Doug

Sight unseen, this is going to be impossible for anyone to answer, Doug. I understand your dilemma, but without knowing what kind of trigger you have, no one is going to be able to provide much assistance.

You are correct. Ideally, you want your flash to fire near the center of the umbrella. It's not the end of the world if it's off by a few inches though. More than anything else, I would be worried about the stability of the unit, and the flash snapping off.

Provide some links or pics of your setup and we might be able to guide you.

Hi Anthony-

Thanks for the reply, I understand that it is quite a confusing situation, I did the best I could in explaining it. I am going to try to attach a link to the E-Bay item that I purchased. I hope the info in there will give a better description so you and others could offer some help. Please let me know if there is any further information you need.

Thanks you so much for your time.

Sincerely- DoWIRELESS FLASH TRIGGER For NIKON SB900 SB-600 SB-28 NEW - eBay (item 120544027194 end time Sep-06-11 20:49:57 PDT)ug

Doug, pardon my question, but why couldn't you just use the D200 flash to trigger the SB-600 throuigh the CLS system?

Hi Marcel-

That is a GREAT question, I did think of that, but I heard it can alter the picture, see,,if I want a photo with light coming from the left or right for a certain effect,,,The pop-up flash right on top would add light by throwing the light straight forward along with my umbrella light from either the right or left.

Is there a way that I can alter the intensity of the pop-up flash so that it still triggers the off camera flash but not contribute to the exposure at all ???

If there is a way or "recipe" for such a thing,,,I would LOVE to know it.

Thanks for your help- Doug

Yes there is a way that the on-board flash would just pre-flash to trigger the other one but wouldn't affect the exposure. You can also adjust the camera flash to underexpose so it just gives a little fill-in for your main flash that would be on the left for example.

It's all in the flash commander menu where you can manually set the different flashes to different powers.

The radio wireless triggers are mostly used when you have an obstacle between the camera flash and the subject, or, when you want to use the flash outside on a bright sunny day.

Nikonite1222 said:

Is there a way that I can alter the intensity of the pop-up flash so that it still triggers the off camera flash but not contribute to the exposure at all ??? If there is a way or "recipe" for such a thing,,,I would LOVE to know it.

Click to expand...

Yup. Manual flash.

If you're worried about your pop-up flash affecting your shot, I think you're in the clear with the triggers you selected, Doug. They have a 30m (almost 100ft) range, and your pop-up flash certainly doesn't have that kind of power. However, Marcel described how to use the pre-flash option beautifully, so that's kind of a non-issue.

As to your original question, after looking at your triggers, there doesn't appear to be any kind of sync cord socket on the receiver unit. The cable supplied is for the transmitter unit (camera mounted). The receiver does have some height to it. But it does swivel, so for the best results, I would just turn it 90 degrees and do the same to your flash head.

Hi There Marcel-

Thanks for the advise. I went in to the Flash Commander setting on my D200 and found all the settings that I needed. I set the "Pop-Up" flash to "Manual" and set it down to 1/128 power so It has enough power to trigger the flash,,,but no enough power to effect the image. And I set "Group A" to "Manual" and dialed down the power to 1/8 or so, and it worked great.

But it brings me one other question though,,,When I'm shooting in those modes mentioned above,,,am I able to change the settings of the flash on the flash or do I have to change them through the camera. I like being able to do it in the flash because I can change stops with in the fraction of power settings and I don't see that you can do that in the camera. Such as 1/4 power and then I can take it down or up in 1/3 stops with in that power setting,,,(does' that make sense ??) i know what I'm trying to say,,I just hope i am explaining it correctly.

If anybody out there can answer this and tell me if it's possible,,I would love to hear it.

Thanks again to Marcel and everybody else who has helped me out,,,you all are awesome-

Sincerely- Doug

I think that you can manage the flash output from the camera's menu. This is why this system is so so awesome. But there is a learning curve that, once achieved will give you many years of fun with the flash settings.

Hi Marcel- Thanks for the tips today,,I got it figured out and I'm playing around with test shots so I can see what the numbers will yield in a real world photograph.

Thanks again- Doug

I know this is an old thread but a mounting solution was never presented. I thought I would contribute my solution and tag this thread for future searches.


I did not mount my flash units with the shoe mount. I built a bracket to allow them to be mounted flat and I used the flash foot for nothing more than mounting the radio trigger.

Here's the commercially available solution - it lifts the umbrella.
Umbrella Jack

Nikonite1222 said:

Hi There Marcel-

Thanks for the advise. I went in to the Flash Commander setting on my D200 and found all the settings that I needed. I set the "Pop-Up" flash to "Manual" and set it down to 1/128 power so It has enough power to trigger the flash,,,but no enough power to effect the image. And I set "Group A" to "Manual" and dialed down the power to 1/8 or so, and it worked great.

Click to expand...

The actual idea would be to set the MODE of the internal flash group to be mode "- -" (in the commander menu). This disables the internal flash contribution. It still flashes the commands before the shutter opens, but does not thereafter contribute to the lighting.

In practice, there won't be much difference between "- -" and 1/128 power, because there is also necessarily an optical slave trigger after the shutter opens, and the both it and commander would be around the same level. But this is normally insignificant to exposure. Either one can cause a catchlight in near shiny subjects. See Using the Nikon CLS Remote Wireless Flash System about that.

But it brings me one other question though,,,When I'm shooting in those modes mentioned above,,,am I able to change the settings of the flash on the flash or do I have to change them through the camera. I like being able to do it in the flash because I can change stops with in the fraction of power settings and I don't see that you can do that in the camera. Such as 1/4 power and then I can take it down or up in 1/3 stops with in that power setting,,,(does' that make sense ??) i know what I'm trying to say,,I just hope i am explaining it correctly.

Click to expand...

If real manual mode (the mode called M, not using commander), you set level in each individual flash.

Using the commander, you use commander menu. There are no controls on the flash in Remote mode.

Using commander, you can set a manual level in 1/3 stops, in the commander menu (where it says COMP - which is compensation for TTL mode or manual level for manual mode units).

Another option click here or here