Can a Nikon SB-700 control Yongnuo YN560 IV flashes as a CLS master?

Asked 7/9/2016

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I use a Nikon SB-700 and am considering adding several Yongnuo YN560 IV speedlights. With Nikon flashes, I can place the SB-700 on the camera hot shoe and use Nikon CLS/Commander mode to control remote flashes. Can the SB-700 do the same with YN560 IV units, including remote power/control, or will they only fire as basic optical slaves?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

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No. You can't control YN-560IVs with an SB-700 the same way an SB-700 can control another SB-700 using Nikon's Creative Lighting System (CLS). Only the Yongnuo flashes with EX in the name have this capability.

CLS is a proprietary optical (light pulse based) signaling protocol that requires a CLS receiver in remote flashes. The YN-560 series of Yongnuo flashes are all manual-only flashes that don't have a CLS receiver. They do have a "dumb" optical slave sensor (similar to SU-4 mode on Nikon speedlights) that you can use with an SB-700 as a remote trigger, but only if you take the SB-700 out of master mode, and use it as a simple manual flash. And the only thing it can tell the YN-560IV to do is fire in sync with the shutter. That's it. (That's what "manual only" means).

To remotely set the power or zoom on a YN-560IV, you need another YN-560IV or YN-560-TX on the camera hotshoe, and this signaling is done over radio, not with light pulses.

You may want to consider a Yongnuo YN-568EX, etc. or a CLS-slave capable flash from Nissin, Metz, Godox, Phottix, etc. etc. instead. Look in specs and reviews for whether or not the flash can be used as a CLS slave. Be careful of any claims for "TTL optical triggering" as they may not be referring to CLS, but a simple "dumb" optical triggering mode that can ignore a TTL pre-flash and fire at the correct time.

See also:

Originally by user27440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user27440

10y ago

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No. A Nikon SB-700 cannot control Yongnuo YN560 IV flashes the same way it controls Nikon CLS-compatible flashes.

The SB-700 uses Nikon CLS, which is a proprietary optical communication system. The YN560 IV is a manual-only flash and does not include a Nikon CLS receiver, so it cannot understand CLS commander signals from the SB-700.

What the YN560 IV can do is act as a basic optical slave: it can fire when it sees another flash. For that, the SB-700 would need to be used as a normal flash, not as a CLS master. In that setup, the YN560 IV will simply trigger in sync with the shot; you won’t get Nikon-style remote control of power or mode from the SB-700.

If you want full remote control, you would need a system designed for the YN560 series or flashes specifically compatible with Nikon CLS.

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