Sorry folks, but I have tried to get my head round this on my own, and I can't get my head round this.
Currently I have a Yongnuo 565EX (max sync 1/250) and a 568EXII (max sync 1/8000). I am really pleased with both of these flashes. I know to some of you these are going to be obvious questions and I apologise for that.
Ideally I would like four flashes, on stands, possibly with four flashes. I would like them to fire obviously with the shutter (sorry for stating the obvious). And ideally I would like stands that take softboxes or umbrellas or either. I am fairly sure that it is possible without lots of triggers i.e. I should be able to buy one trigger that would control all my flashes off camera. Possibly this would include a remote that would also control the shutter. Or I think it is possible that other flashes are controlled by the light from other flashes.
I have looked on Yongnuo's website, and Wex Photographic, but am really not sure what to buy / plan to buy. Or should I be looking at something else entirely. Sorry, but flash is new to me and I have been offered to do some portraiture. I am reading up on it but haven't got a clue where to start.
I am really happy with Yongnuo's stuff for the price, and do not want to spend thousands on a pro studio.
Depending on your flashes... There are cheap and cheerful electronic / radio triggers / receivers that attach to the camera and flashes. You can also probably use (depending on your flashes) another camera mounted flash to set your four independent flashes off. Then there is the option to use a sync cable... Oh the joys of Speedlight / flash photography.
As for mounting softboxes and the like, it depends on which softbox manufacturer you choose as to what adapter rings are available.
Had you considered not using Speedlites and using dedicated studio strobes instead? A bit more expensive to purchase initially but infinitely more flexible in the long run. Then you will probably be able to find some suitable softbox mounts to go with them. Here are some examples of studio flashes http://www.smick.co.uk/sonline/flash-heads.html and I am sure that everyone has their own favourite supplier who can do it cheaper / better etc. but this will give you an idea.
@steampowered My 568EXII will act as a master, but I might not want it on the camera - is it possible to get one trigger set that will trigger all my flashes off camera - i'm sure yongnuo will do one but their website isn't brilliant for information and I have emailed the question twice to them and had no reply. I guess going cheap gets you worse customer service.
Is a stand a stand, or do you have to have different types - i.e. can I buy a generic stand and fix my speedlites to it - and I presume by your comment that you need an adaptor ring to put a softbox on a stand (or does the softbox attach to the speedlite) Confused.....
One of the main things you need to decide early on is whether you want the flash brightness to be controlled automatically (known as TTL, or wireless TTL when multiple flashes are involved), or whether you are willing to set the brightness of each flash manually.
Currently, both of your flashes support wireless TTL, so you may wish to expand your collection based on that. Alternatively, if you are happier controlling flash brightness manually (which many photographers prefer for complex lighting situations), you could go down the slightly cheaper route of manual radio flashes.
If you want to stick with TTL, as you have at the moment, you will need a wireless TTL master controller on the camera. Currently the only thing you have that can do that is your 568EXII. This is also the only optical master controller that Yongnuo make at the moment.
Yongnuo's wireless TTL flash communications are, in theory, completely compatible with Canon's own system, so if you wanted to, you could buy Canon's ST-E2 transmitter, which acts as a master controller, but doesn't act as a flash itself.
The downside of this is that, even though it doesn't act as a flash, and only as a controller, it still costs more than the Yongnuo 568EXII, which is both a flash and a controller!
Accordingly, unless Yongnuo plan to release an ST-E2 clone (and I don't have any reason to suspect they do or don't), your cheapest plan for TTL with four flashes is probably to put your existing 568EXII on your camera, operating solely as a controller, and buy three additional Yongnuo 565EX flashes. You will then be able to trigger all four 565EX flashes remotely via the 568EXII on the camera, as well as assign them to 'groups' which allow you to alter the relative brightness of the flashes while keeping the overall exposure automatically controlled.
Hi Ian - Yongnuo do a TTL radio controller, the YN622 (it's incredibly cheap) and this will fire your flahes with full exposure control. Spend 10 minutes on Amazon and you will find everything you need to know about stands, soft-boxes and umbrellas and the adaptors you will need to use them with your flash-heads. I have some cheap studio strobes and some cheap flashes like yours - they both work well and I use one or the other for many of the shots on my project. I tend to use all of my flashes under manual control - it enable me to get exactly the lighting I'm looking for and the in-camera histogram is a great aid to arriving at the correct settings quickly. Hope this helps - you're going to have a lot of fun.
I'm very glad to see this thread as I was just beginning to read, review, and shop for flashes. I'll be following to see if I, too, can gain some valuable insight! :) Thanks, @iwatts, for starting the discussion.
@vignouse@abirkill Would the YN622 allow me to control the 568, which in turn would control the 565's, or would the YN622 control multiple slaves, including the 568 as well as any more 565's.
I have also heard that some flashes trigger when it registers another flash - is that a possibility here. In fact I'll look in my manual for that and stop being so lazy.
Ian, rather than me writing it all out - just look at the technical details listed on Amazon and also do a Google looking for reviews. You want the YN622N triggers rather than the YN622C as the former will do high-speed sync up tp 1/8000 which will allow you to get some cool effects.
@vignouse Problem is Richard I don't always understand what I'm reading - I've just read the manual but being translated from Japanse it leaves a lot to be desired. I will do some googling and see what I can find out.
@iwatts The 568EXII is one of the flashes you mentioned already owning, I believe?
PC (short for Prontor/Compur) ports are a standard (and ancient) connection for very basic wired flash triggering -- you can run PC cables between flashes, cameras or triggers that have PC ports and a trigger signal will be sent along them. The PC connector looks like the one on the right, here:
It's a common way of connecting studio flashes, so it's usually used to link a studio flash system with a battery-powered flash system. It allows for neither wireless communication nor TTL control, so I don't think it's going to do anything useful for what you're describing.
I don't believe you'll be able to use the YN622 as a bridge, i.e. where there's a YN622 on the camera, a YN622 on the 568, and then the 568 controlling the 565s.
However, you should be able to put a YN622 on the camera and a YN622 on each of your flashes (be they 565s, 568s, or a combination), and have them all controlled from the camera.
In this case, you'd need five YN622s to drive four flashes (one on each flash and one on the camera), which probably works out to more than an additional 568II costs. Additionally you'll have to deal with more bits to carry around, and more batteries to keep charged. However, you would get RF triggering (as opposed to optical line-of-sight), which can be an advantage for complex lighting setups where you want to put a flash around a corner or otherwise hidden from the camera.
Edit: In answer to your last question, some flashes do support very basic optical slave triggering, where they can be put into a mode where they wait to see another flash, and then immediately fire themselves.
This is a totally manual solution (there's no TTL control, so flash power needs to be dialed in manually on all the flashes), and also can be rather prone to mis-triggering. TTL flash systems use a pre-flash to meter (i.e. when you take a photo, the camera tells the flashes to fire on low power, meters the exposure, determines the brightness adjustments needed, communicates them to the flashes, opens the shutter, and then flashes at correct power). All this happens literally in the blink of an eye, but the first 'pre-flash' can often cause problems when using basic optical triggers.
I believe that your Yongnuo flashes do have built-in optical slave detectors, with two modes (S1 and S2), one of which is supposed to detect and ignore pre-flash signals, but it's still not something I'd recommend for serious off-camera flash work. (And you'll still need a flash on the camera to drive them).
@vignouse The N and C on the end of Yongnuo products typically refers to whether they are designed for Nikon or Canon. I don't believe the YN622N is compatible with Canon cameras and flashes, unless you know otherwise?
Additionally, as far as I can tell both the Canon (YN622C) and Nikon (YN622N) versions support high-speed sync, although the connected flashes need to also. (The YN565EX doesn't support HSS, the YN568EXII does).
@vignouse@abirkill Thanks both for all your effort in explaining this to me in plain English - I need to do more research and practice first and may stick to a two flash system for now.
The n and the c do indeed stand for Nikon and Canon and both support HSS - wondered when i was googling for the YN622N it kept talking about Nikon and not Canon.
Thank you gain both for your help - you are life savers
@abirkill Agreed Alexis - I was just having a senior moment there! I decided that all these connections and adjustments were far too complicated when it only takes a couple of minutes to set the flashes up manually - but I do make use of inter-flash optical triggering.
@vignouse@abirkill Yup. On a course, a couple of weeks back we were using Canon Speedlights (and Nikon and generic flashes) to optically trigger Nikon SB800 flashguns (but I don't think you can do it the other way around). No special channel had to be set up - we just turned the other manufacturers Speedlights onto manual mode and wound the power down as low as possible so that it would act as a trigger but not affect overall exposure. I believe that this is a legacy thing built into certain Nikon flashguns. I suppose the question now is "Does Yongnuo have the equivalent setting?"
@steampowered Yes, they do -- see the last paragraph of one of my earlier replies. Most Yongnuo flashes have two simple optical slave modes, S1 and S2, one of which should ignore the TTL pre-flash.
The SB800 optical slave isn't (as far as I'm aware) pre-flash aware, so it will not trigger at the right time if the camera flash is in TTL mode. This isn't a big deal if you're using an external flash, as you can set it to manual mode, but means you can't trigger it from a pop-up flash, as the TTL pre-flash generally can't be disabled.
If you have a flash that doesn't have an optical slave function built in, it's very cheap to add one.
@abirkill Indeed. I must admit that I use two EX600 RT and an ST E3 RT to trigger them both or one EX600 RT to trigger the other. At least that way I can use ETTL should I wish to but I am starting to find the overall control using manual flash is just awesome. I haven't played with triggering my other older flashguns yet (I should have an old Sigma and and even older Minolta flashgun to play with somewhere in my study) but I am hoping that their "technological" age will be to my advantage because I reckon they should become optical slaves quite readily and will be great for filling in on white backgrounds and the like.
@abirkill@steampowered@vignouseThanks for all your help with the trigger situation - I now need to know about light stands and softboxes. I can easily buy light stands and know my speedlites will fit them, but what I don't get is how to make sure a softbox will also fit too. I see so many adapters. What I want initially is two stands that will take two speedlites with softboxes, but don't know what adapters I will need to make sure the stand, softbox and speedlite are all compatible. I've done a fair bit of portrait photography for a youth amateur dramatics company and would like to take it further. The more I look into it though the more confused I get. Cost is an option at this time. Some said all you need is an umbrella adapter, but don't only some softboxes work with an umbrella adapter.
@iwatts Big softboxes like that are typically meant to be supported by the studio light they are attached to, using the speedring bayonet attachment (also called a Bowen mount) at the back of the softbox.
While you might be able to 'jury-rig' something to hold a portable flash in place and support the softbox, I think a proper adapter that will use the built-in mount of the softbox and allow you to connect that to a stand will give you a much more usable and stable solution, such as this:
The softbox should mount onto the ring at the front, with the flash positioned on the hotshoe mount at the rear. If you click on the second picture it shows how this works with a typical flash like your Yongnuo model and various lighting modifiers with speedring adapters.
@iwatts It would depend on the mounting on the softbox. The softbox you linked to, based on the photos provided, appears to only have a Bowen 'speedring' mount, the big circular bayonet mount with three prongs that you can see in the last Amazon photo.
There's no proper way to mount that onto a bracket like the one you've linked to, short of hacking something up with duct tape or the like.
There are some softboxes which are designed to be used solely with flashguns, and so mount directly to the flash head, like this:
Although they are typically much smaller. There are also some softboxes which come with a mount for a flashgun included, which serves the same purpose as the mount I provided, such as this one:
This is basically a kit containing a softbox and a mount like the one I linked to, although it can be more flexibility to buy the softbox and mount separately. (I believe that mount is non-standard, so it won't allow you to fit other softboxes to it, unlike the standard Bowen speedring mount that will work with any lighting modifier that has the same mounting type)
The bracket that you've linked to is designed for use with umbrellas, rather than a softbox, so the shaft of the umbrella can be secured in that mount, with the flash pointing along the shaft into the umbrella. If you plan to use umbrellas, that's exactly the kind of bracket you want, but I'm not aware of any softboxes that use that mounting style (and I certainly can't see how it would work with the softbox you linked to).
If you're planning on using big softboxes (and that is a big softbox that you have in mind), then it's probably most flexible to buy a softbox with a Bowen speedring mount, like the one you've found, and then buy a adapter designed to connect a flashgun to it, like the one I linked to. That means that any future softboxes you buy just have to have a Bowen speedring mount (probably the most common mount) and will fit on the same adapter.
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As for mounting softboxes and the like, it depends on which softbox manufacturer you choose as to what adapter rings are available.
Had you considered not using Speedlites and using dedicated studio strobes instead? A bit more expensive to purchase initially but infinitely more flexible in the long run. Then you will probably be able to find some suitable softbox mounts to go with them. Here are some examples of studio flashes http://www.smick.co.uk/sonline/flash-heads.html and I am sure that everyone has their own favourite supplier who can do it cheaper / better etc. but this will give you an idea.
Is a stand a stand, or do you have to have different types - i.e. can I buy a generic stand and fix my speedlites to it - and I presume by your comment that you need an adaptor ring to put a softbox on a stand (or does the softbox attach to the speedlite) Confused.....
Currently, both of your flashes support wireless TTL, so you may wish to expand your collection based on that. Alternatively, if you are happier controlling flash brightness manually (which many photographers prefer for complex lighting situations), you could go down the slightly cheaper route of manual radio flashes.
If you want to stick with TTL, as you have at the moment, you will need a wireless TTL master controller on the camera. Currently the only thing you have that can do that is your 568EXII. This is also the only optical master controller that Yongnuo make at the moment.
Yongnuo's wireless TTL flash communications are, in theory, completely compatible with Canon's own system, so if you wanted to, you could buy Canon's ST-E2 transmitter, which acts as a master controller, but doesn't act as a flash itself.
The downside of this is that, even though it doesn't act as a flash, and only as a controller, it still costs more than the Yongnuo 568EXII, which is both a flash and a controller!
Accordingly, unless Yongnuo plan to release an ST-E2 clone (and I don't have any reason to suspect they do or don't), your cheapest plan for TTL with four flashes is probably to put your existing 568EXII on your camera, operating solely as a controller, and buy three additional Yongnuo 565EX flashes. You will then be able to trigger all four 565EX flashes remotely via the 568EXII on the camera, as well as assign them to 'groups' which allow you to alter the relative brightness of the flashes while keeping the overall exposure automatically controlled.
"Yn 565ex provides pc port，you can make the flash synchronously by connecting to the pc port."
Not sure I understand what this means?
I have also heard that some flashes trigger when it registers another flash - is that a possibility here. In fact I'll look in my manual for that and stop being so lazy.
PC (short for Prontor/Compur) ports are a standard (and ancient) connection for very basic wired flash triggering -- you can run PC cables between flashes, cameras or triggers that have PC ports and a trigger signal will be sent along them. The PC connector looks like the one on the right, here:
It's a common way of connecting studio flashes, so it's usually used to link a studio flash system with a battery-powered flash system. It allows for neither wireless communication nor TTL control, so I don't think it's going to do anything useful for what you're describing.
I don't believe you'll be able to use the YN622 as a bridge, i.e. where there's a YN622 on the camera, a YN622 on the 568, and then the 568 controlling the 565s.
However, you should be able to put a YN622 on the camera and a YN622 on each of your flashes (be they 565s, 568s, or a combination), and have them all controlled from the camera.
In this case, you'd need five YN622s to drive four flashes (one on each flash and one on the camera), which probably works out to more than an additional 568II costs. Additionally you'll have to deal with more bits to carry around, and more batteries to keep charged. However, you would get RF triggering (as opposed to optical line-of-sight), which can be an advantage for complex lighting setups where you want to put a flash around a corner or otherwise hidden from the camera.
Edit: In answer to your last question, some flashes do support very basic optical slave triggering, where they can be put into a mode where they wait to see another flash, and then immediately fire themselves.
This is a totally manual solution (there's no TTL control, so flash power needs to be dialed in manually on all the flashes), and also can be rather prone to mis-triggering. TTL flash systems use a pre-flash to meter (i.e. when you take a photo, the camera tells the flashes to fire on low power, meters the exposure, determines the brightness adjustments needed, communicates them to the flashes, opens the shutter, and then flashes at correct power). All this happens literally in the blink of an eye, but the first 'pre-flash' can often cause problems when using basic optical triggers.
I believe that your Yongnuo flashes do have built-in optical slave detectors, with two modes (S1 and S2), one of which is supposed to detect and ignore pre-flash signals, but it's still not something I'd recommend for serious off-camera flash work. (And you'll still need a flash on the camera to drive them).
Additionally, as far as I can tell both the Canon (YN622C) and Nikon (YN622N) versions support high-speed sync, although the connected flashes need to also. (The YN565EX doesn't support HSS, the YN568EXII does).
The n and the c do indeed stand for Nikon and Canon and both support HSS - wondered when i was googling for the YN622N it kept talking about Nikon and not Canon.
Thank you gain both for your help - you are life savers
The SB800 optical slave isn't (as far as I'm aware) pre-flash aware, so it will not trigger at the right time if the camera flash is in TTL mode. This isn't a big deal if you're using an external flash, as you can set it to manual mode, but means you can't trigger it from a pop-up flash, as the TTL pre-flash generally can't be disabled.
If you have a flash that doesn't have an optical slave function built in, it's very cheap to add one.
At this point I was looking at the following (trying to work it out myself as you suggested Richard):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00G31A4FG/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A30AIITTLA5T15 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004YNF3DI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3H1KL2PTEXAP1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001U4OUUQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2K4KMH9XTD2IX
But don't know if that combination will work with my yongnuo speedlites. Any advice?
While you might be able to 'jury-rig' something to hold a portable flash in place and support the softbox, I think a proper adapter that will use the built-in mount of the softbox and allow you to connect that to a stand will give you a much more usable and stable solution, such as this:
Kaavie L Shape Hot Shoe Flash Bracket for Studio Photography
The softbox should mount onto the ring at the front, with the flash positioned on the hotshoe mount at the rear. If you click on the second picture it shows how this works with a typical flash like your Yongnuo model and various lighting modifiers with speedring adapters.
Hope that helps!
Edit: Original link was wrong, now fixed.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004YNF3DI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3H1KL2PTEXAP1
There's no proper way to mount that onto a bracket like the one you've linked to, short of hacking something up with duct tape or the like.
There are some softboxes which are designed to be used solely with flashguns, and so mount directly to the flash head, like this:
Fotodiox 6"x8" Softbox
Although they are typically much smaller. There are also some softboxes which come with a mount for a flashgun included, which serves the same purpose as the mount I provided, such as this one:
NEEWER 24" Portable Professional Softbox Kit
This is basically a kit containing a softbox and a mount like the one I linked to, although it can be more flexibility to buy the softbox and mount separately. (I believe that mount is non-standard, so it won't allow you to fit other softboxes to it, unlike the standard Bowen speedring mount that will work with any lighting modifier that has the same mounting type)
The bracket that you've linked to is designed for use with umbrellas, rather than a softbox, so the shaft of the umbrella can be secured in that mount, with the flash pointing along the shaft into the umbrella. If you plan to use umbrellas, that's exactly the kind of bracket you want, but I'm not aware of any softboxes that use that mounting style (and I certainly can't see how it would work with the softbox you linked to).
If you're planning on using big softboxes (and that is a big softbox that you have in mind), then it's probably most flexible to buy a softbox with a Bowen speedring mount, like the one you've found, and then buy a adapter designed to connect a flashgun to it, like the one I linked to. That means that any future softboxes you buy just have to have a Bowen speedring mount (probably the most common mount) and will fit on the same adapter.