Short Talk: A sudden change of the blog header was being inspired by this particular tutorial created by a friend, Rames. You can visit the site here.

I am going to attend OBS, abbreviation for Outward Bound Singapore in less than 4 hours. It is going to be a 3-day trip from Saturday till Monday evening. During the duration of the camp, mobile phones are required to be handed in to the personnel in charge for safe-keeping. No tele-communication for the next three days I guess.

Right after my last CA paper, Life Sciences, I decided to reward myself in a walk down the gadget malls near Orchard. After walking for more than two hours in Peninsular Plaza, I managed to get a good deal from different stores.

One thing I noticed about shopping in Singapore is that gadget merchants tend to be snobbish and ignorant at all times. They tend to know everything and be your gadget consultant. In fact, they may be wrong.

Before I quote you the example, here's a summary of what I encountered yesterday. I bought an optical slave hot-shoe adapter and by hot-shoe, I'm not referring to those that you actually put on your feet. I was looking for a secondary flash so that I could do wireless flash photography. I shall continue the story in the dialogue below.

S = Seller, M=Me

S: Hi, what are you looking for?

Me: I'm actually looking for a secondary flash which I can use it as a slave.

S: Oh, which brand of cameras are you using by the way?

Me: I'm using a Canon 400D with 580EXII Speedlite.

S: If you're using Canon Speedlite, you should use back flash guns from Canon such as 430EX and bla bla bla.

Me: Yes I understand, but as you can see, I bought this optical slave adapter and all I need is just a cheap flash gun to put onto it.

S: Trust me, if you use flash guns from other brands, it won't work because the moment you start to snap a picture, the Canon flash gun will do a pre-flash, and the slave flash will fire during the pre-flash and not the actual flash.

Me: I know, but I'm not going to lock my exposure, hence, a pre-flash will not be fired.

S: Most of my customers encountered such problems, if you do not believe me, then it's up to you.

Me: Alright, I don't mind. Could you show me the cheap flash guns from China. *Wait till I prove you wrong, ignorant tard.*

*Puts on the optical slave adapter to the cheap flash gun and tested a few shots with my camera.*

It really worked! The flash from my Canon Speedlite actually triggered the slave flash without doing a pre-flash. The trick is to disable the use of exposure lock by not using it at all. Change the mode of the flash to Manual and you can snap pictures without doing pre-flash.

The seller was wordless when I showed him the little experiment of mine. In fact, I actually educated him that if he locks the exposure, then, a pre-flash will fire. Then he was like: "Ohhh, so you shoot with Manual?. My answer was like: "Yea, from the beginning I was telling you that I won't lock the exposure."

THAT WAS SO RIGHT ON HIS FACE!!! Muahahahaha.. I am so mean.

So what's the good deal I got?


I got the two flash heads and the optical slave hot-shoe adapter for S$85 and 8 eneloop batteries for S$40.


The two flash heads being triggered by my on-camera 580EXII.


I went back to my hostel full of excitement to those babies into test and they worked perfectly fine!

The ring flash adapter which I designed on my own. Made out of pure cardboard!

Here's a picture of me with the flash guns.



More to come when I'm back from the camp!
Stay tuned!!

This entry was posted by Patrick, on Friday, September 19, 2008. You can leave your response.