
CLS is built in to the sb900
There are many articles on CLS already and there is even a DVD
directly to the pros and cons on using Nikon CLS as the triggering method.
- Pros:
- Much more sophisticated than the regular optical triggers. It supports iTTL and it even allows you to adjust the settings of the remote flashes from the camera
- Built-in to the flashes. No extra component to buy. No extra battery is needed.
- Very Scalable. It can trigger many flashes with different settings.
- Much more sophisticated than the regular optical triggers. It supports iTTL and it even allows you to adjust the settings of the remote flashes from the camera
- Cons:
- Nikon only. Not compatible with other vendors. So it does not work with my Vivitar, Canon and Alien Bees.
- Still an optical trigger. Still need to make sure the master and slaves are in the line-of-sight.
- It allows you to use the on-camera flash as the master but with the line-of-sight requirement, you may need to use a separate master to trigger. You can get another SB900, SB800 or SU800 to do that but they are very expensive.
- It cannot be mixed with other optical triggering slaves because the pre-flashes will trigger them.
- Nikon only. Not compatible with other vendors. So it does not work with my Vivitar, Canon and Alien Bees.
I have written a few other posts on using it on location and with my softbox. You can find those articles here and here. In general, I like Nikon CLS very much because I don't need to carry extra components and I can set everything from my camera. I use it whenever I can. However, I still need a way to trigger my flashes from other vendors.
By the way, with SB800 and SB900, you can put them into something called the SU-4 mode. Basically, it put them into the simple optical trigger mode. Now you can mix them with other optical triggering slaves. I use this a lot in the studio setting. I use the Alien Bees as the master flash and the SB800 as the slave in SU-4 mode. I can add my Vivitar using the Sonia optical trigger. Now I can use 3 flashes in the same. I just need to use manual mode for all of them.
There is no SU-4 mode in SB600 and there is no sync port. It cannot be a CLS master. However, it is at least $100 cheaper than a SB800 (used). So if I want to use the SB600, then I put the Sonia on it or a hot-shoe adapter to give it a sync port. I only use the SB600 if I have to as it is not as flexible as the SB800.
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