Strobe with a shoe mounted flash?

[Mr. Pickles]

Okay lighting gurus. Anybody have thoughts or ideas on using a shoe mounted flash unit, with a strobe/umbrella as a main light at an angle to the subject? Like place the strobe/umbrella at 45 degree angle to the left or right of the camera, and closer to the model than you and your camera with hot shoe mounted flash are, used as a fill?

[Nikonfreak]

I've tried this a few times with mixed bag results.

The Nikon CLS system is creative all right, though to be honest I was trying to do it with the last generation (SB 80 DX) flash units and my D100 rather than the new SB 800 units with the D200 that I now have.

If it tells you anything, Additional Nikon SB 800 units were going to be about $300+ or so and for the money I decided I'd get more power, AC versatility, and no battery worries by ordering a set of Alien Bees. So I went for the Digibee kit. I would have ordered the background kit as well (AB 400), but I wanted to play with these lights a little before going hog wild.

Ultimately, if these lights work out as everyone seems to say they do, I plan to have 3 AB 800's, 2 AB400's and some accessories. The reason for 3 is to have 1 backup light for the 800's if something goes wrong on a shoot. A second AB 400 would be backup for background or hair light.

Julio

[Latinbob]

I've done this before with my Nikon SB-800 mounted on an adapter that holds the umbrella too. One thing I found is that you have to put a piece of paper or cardboard under the flash if you are triggering it remotely, like I was with my D70. I couldn't get it to go off until I did that. It works pretty well as long as you are shooting only one person. I tried it with three people sitting on a couch and it wasn't enough light. I had to break out the AB400 and put the flash on the other side as a fill. It works great that way.

[Mr. Pickles]

A piece of cardboard under the flash? What does that do? Is the flash on a hot shoe adapter or something?

[Latinbob]

Yes, the flash on my bracket thingy has a hot shoe adapter that is metal. I guess it is grounding out the contacts. It may be different depending on your flash and bracket. Just something to check if the flash wont fire!

[Mr. Pickles]

That and batteries

[Jon]

She'll kill me if she finds out I posted her in her jammies, but I'm thinking I ought not to post a nude in this area...

Here's the setup (this was Guerilla Glam with no time to meter, I just roughed it in by the histogram):

Sigma DG500ST set to stun on a pod, to camera right, splitting the difference in the circle about 20 feet away from her. Amber gel over the face of a 6x8 inch Lumiquest softbox.

SB28 set to about 1/3 with an amber gel on a bracket on the camera.

I know this isn't *exactly* what you were asking, but it's the closest result example that I could come up with...