What’s the difference between master and slave flash modes?

Asked 1/18/2013

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My Nissin Di866 II supports both master and slave flash modes. I understand that slave mode is used for off-camera flash control with a Nikon commander system, but what does master mode do, and how is it different from slave mode?

nikon lighting wireless-flash off-camera-flash flash

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

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

13y ago

2 Answers

This nomenclature is for using multiple flashes simultaneously. In such setup, one flash is the master and all other ones are slaves:

The master flash is the one fired directly by the camera.
Slave flashes see the light of the master and fire in response to that. Therefore they do not have to be connected to the camera, they only have to be able to detect the flash of the master one firing.

Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1620

13y ago

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In a multi-flash setup, the master is the flash that controls or triggers other flashes, and the slaves are the remote flashes that fire in response.

Slave mode: the flash is off-camera and waits for a trigger from a master flash or a commander.
Master mode: the flash is mounted on or connected to the camera and triggers/controls other flashes set to slave mode.

There are two common ways this works:

Simple optical triggering: the master flash fires, and slave flashes detect that burst of light and fire at their preset power.
Command/pre-flash control: the master sends control flashes before the exposure, allowing compatible slave flashes to be adjusted remotely for power and sometimes grouped separately.

So on your Nissin, master mode means it can act as the controller, while slave mode means it can be controlled by another flash/commander.

What’s the difference between master and slave flash modes?

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