Wireless use of flash away from camera (Question)

Hi I have a couple of questions

1. If I use wireless option to trigger my flash head away from the camera this only seems to work when I have my onboard camera flash popped up. Is there a way to trigger the slave flash without using the on board flash switched on . In other words all I want is to trigger my flash head unit the one that is away from the camera body ??

2. I am seriously thinking of buying the sigma 500 DG super for my K10D which has PTTL etc.. Does this unit also work wireless ???

I would by the samsung version but need one by next Saturday

Cheers Pete

Pete,

The only communication that the camera has with a wireless off-camera flash is via the light from the on-board or compatible flash attached to the hot shoe. You MUST use the onboard flash or another AF360/540FGZ.

You can set the onboard or hot shoe flash to be a wireless controller so that it does not contribute light to the scene (not very much anyway).

When set as a wireless master, the onboard or hot shoe flash does contribute light to the scene.

The only other way is to use a radio flash trigger system., transmitter fitted to hot shoe and receiver attached to flash.

Interfit IR Trigger works a treat with studio flash.

Pete,

Wireless flash does not mean radio flash, it means flashing lights flash. In other words, the camera emits a burst of very short sharp flashes which tell the remote flash what to do - a bit like Morse code.

So you need to use either the pop-up flash to transmit these flashed instructions, or a separate flashgun mounted on the hotshoe or connected by 5p cables.

G