strobes& slaves for digital-whats best?

[glassgnom]

I know this has been discussed to death, but Im still a little fuzzy about the details. I can turn the flash off on my optioWI, and the fireworks setting gives me about 2 secs of opening, but what is a good strobe that is manual fired to go with it? Specs for strobes seem to omit the info if they can be manually fired, at least I cant find it in them. I know a Firefly would be a good slave, but I need a strobe I can shoot manually..

[NZcaver]

Most electronic flashguns can be fired manually. Look for a "test" button. As for what is good, it all depends on how large/bright/expensive you want to go, and whether you'll always be using the camera on auto rather than selecting any manual aperture settings (if you have that option with your camera).

With my old, basic digital point-and-shoot, I often used the small, cheap slave shown here, which worked OK for short-range photos. If you cover the slave part, you can just fire the flash manually (which I usually did). If you do get a bigger flashgun, I suggest one with adjustable intensity. That way you can dial up and down your power so you don't over-expose the close-up shorts or under-expose the larger room/passage shots - especially when you leave the camera set on an auto sunset/fireworks type mode.

If you haven't already, take a read through these threads...
Those annoying spots
Slaves for Digital Cameras
New to Digital Cameras

[Realms]

vivitar 285 mmmmm

[NZcaver]

Or... a Sunpak 383

[Bobatnathrop]

A Vivtar would be a good choice. You can get them off Ebay for about $40-50 I think.

[glassgnom]

well, i have a flash coming from ebay, new for about $70. Now all I have to do is get it-and go caving! Its for the Pentax that I have-I do know it has a manual fire capacity, setting the timer and getting off to the side to fire the flash is the trick, I guess. I will have to start thinking about getting a slave now-was told that 2 lights at 45degrees from the camera gives good depth to the pics. BTW, I did try bidding on those vivitar 285s, but they kept on getting bumped up at the last minute to an unreasonable price(coincidence?), so I just got one for my camera.