Okay, everybody knows that most all Nikon DSLR’s can command Nikon flashes wirelessly, this is as old news as the ~4 year old D70… And, this control has come a long way, now with the D300 being able to trigger a flash and fire an image with almost no delay, not to mention the ability to control two different groups of wireless flashes separately, in TTL if you want, while dialing in compensation from the camera. Woohoo!

But what you may not know, and what I didn’t realize until a few days ago, is that the semi-useless CANON pop-up flashes as well as ANY other camera flash, including point-and-shoot cameras, are all capable of a similar function. All you need is a NIKON SB800 flash!

You see, there is a wireless remote mode / setting on the SB800 called “SU4″. I thought that mode required you to attach a little receiver to the hotshoe of the flash to make it compatible with other brand commanders, but actually it works the opposite way- SU4 mode allows the SB800 alone to be wirelessly commanded by ANYTHING. Even when Canon DSLR’s do their little autofocus strobe thing, the SB800 blazes away too! (And blinds you if you’re not expecting it…)

You can only use the flash in fully manual M mode, or the ghetto-auto A mode, not TTL. But still, you CAN set as many different remotes as you want, and as long as they’re in the infra-red line of sight of the commanding pop-up flash on your Canon, Pentax, Sony, Olympus, etc. camera body, you’re going to get some crazy-good lighting! The pop-up flash can be left in TTL mode, where it belongs. It doesn’t even know that there are other flashes out there that are about to go off!

I recommend that you get your SB800 from Adorama or B&H, by the way… Or KEH.com if you want used, of course…

Good luck and take care!

=Matt=