Camera Lighting Equipment

How to connect camera to lighting?

What are my options for connecting my camera to my lighting setup?

Public Comments

1. A lot of that would depend on your camera - if you have a PC connection on the camera, you can plug a PC sync cord there and plug the other end into the sync terminal on your lights. If you don't have a PC connection on the camera, but you have a hot shoe flash mount, you can get a hot shoe-to-PC adapter, which are made by plenty of companies, Wein being the most commonly used: http://www.weinproducts.com/safesyncs.htm You can also go with radio triggers, anything from the cheap ones off eBay, the RD616 system, which works pretty well: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350015852077&ssPageName=MERC_VIC_RCRX_Pr4_PcY_BIN_IT&refitem=350001637873&itemcount=4&refwidgetloc=closed_view_item&usedrule1=CrossSell_LogicX&refwidgettype=cross_promot_widget All the way up to Pocket Wizards, which are outstanding: http://pocketwizard.com/
2. Two basic methods: wired or wireless. Let's talk wired first: If your camera has a PC sync connector, simply connect your studio lights to the PC connector on the camera with the proper cord. If your camera doesn't have a PC connector, you can get a hotshoe to PC adapter that has the PC connector on it. Now, wireless: 1) Infrared sender in the hot shoe to trigger studio flashes with IR. 2) wireless radio transmitter in hot shoe (i.e. pocket wizards) 3) take a hotshoe flash, set it to the lowest manual power (example, a Nikon SB-800 can be set to 1/64th power) and use that to trigger flashes like the IR sender.