This one is for the strobists out there. There are a multitude of different ways to get multiple flashes to sync off camera. Some are more troublesome than others. After much trial and error, these are a few methods which work consistently for me with a minimum of fuss.

Firstly, wireless triggers such as pocket wizards (and the much cheaper ebay cactus V2 triggers) are really great tools, especially when you need flashes far away or out of line of sight. However, for indoor and close in outdoor work, I find the setup below more use friendly. Optical triggers do not need extra batteries and this is where the beauty of simplicity comes in.

Below we see

1. Canon 430EX triggered by PC cord from camera. (could also be triggered by ST-E2 in manual mode or ebay trigger. This method would work for all the other flashes too.) This flash is triggered when the camera shutter is fired. The rest of the flashes fire in sync and are triggered optically. In the diagram, I have used the cactus receiver as a hotshoe adapter. A normal hotshoe adapter would work fine here.

2..2x Nikon SB26s. These have inbuilt optical triggers which are very sensitive and reliable.

3. Vivitar flash with Sonia optical slave attached via hotshoe adapter. Note - these sonia triggers do not work with the Canon 430EX.

The PC cord is attached to the camera. If your camera does not have a PC connector, then you can use a hotshoe adapter as in the second picture. Another bonus is that if you use a PC cord on a compact such as Canon g9 or ricoh Gx100, you can sync at speed of 1/1600+. Very handy!

Combining the use of triggers and optical slaves gives a lot of flexibility in the field. Have fun.

A good place to buy all these bits and pieces is from www.flashzebra.com.