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In photography, “Master and Slave” flashes is lazy language. We can do better.

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If you’re an avid photographer shooting with remote-controlled strobes, you’ll have come across this issue: One set of flashes is connected to your camera, and it controls all the other flashes in the photo studio.

Almost all of these systems use the same terminology: “Master” for the trigger that is doing the controlling, and “Slave” for the receiving strobe. It seems convenient because the language is so clear — until you pause for half a moment, and think about what that use of language does to normalize and casualize literal slavery.

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Who should own photos of slaves?

In 1976 while rummaging through an attic of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in search of old museum publications, editorial assistant Lorna Condon opened a drawer in a wooden cabinet. Inside, she found a number of flat leather cases which contained a series of daguerreotypes of partially and fully nude Black people. Names were handwritten on paper labels identifying 7 individuals: Alfred, Delia, Drama, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty with assumed ethnicities and occupations. The daguerreotypes represented some of the earliest known images of slaves in the U.S.

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Leica joins the club and drops “Master” and “Slave” terminology

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After the killing of George Floyd on 25 May, Black Lives Matter protests have been arising all over the world. Some camera companies have given their contribution by dropping “master” and “slave” terms from their flash systems, and Leica is the latest one to join the club.

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Fuji catches up to Nikon and Canon and drops “master” and “slave” terminology

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In the light of recent Black Lives Matter protests, it has come to light that Nikon and Canon dropped the “master/slave” terminology. It happened way before the recent events though, but Fujifilm is the first company to follow their example. The company has confirmed that, from now on, “master” and “slave” will not be used in their products any longer.

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Nikon dropped “master” and “slave” before it was cool, about twenty years ago

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During the recent Black Lives Matter protests, the terms “master” and “slave” seem to have suddenly become problematic. After Canon, we now find out that Nikon has changed the terminology in its products as well. Only it was actually long before Canon did it – way back in the early 2000s.

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Canon has dropped “Master” and “Slave” terminology from its flash system

In the light of recent Black Lives Matter protests, some photographers pointed out that camera companies should drop the “master” and “slave” terms. And Canon officially did so. When using this manufacturer’s flash system, don’t be surprised if you find different terminology.

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Smarten Up Your Dumb Optical Slave By Hooking it Up With Arduino

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Optical Slaves are the simplest (and cheapest for the most part) method for using off camera flashes.

The principle is simple, when the optical slave sees another flash fire, it fires too. Kinda like yawning. Once one of goes, it is catchy.

Of course optical slaves have their limitations, one of which is that they are too dump to understand the difference between a flash and a pre-flash. There are a few more limitations to optical dumb slaves, but this post is about overcoming the pre-flash issue with a cool gizmo called Arduino.[Read More…]

The Strobist Corner: Attention Pocketwizard Flex TT5 Users

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The fact that Pocketwizard have a new TTL enabled unit is old news. The Flex TT5 and Flex TT1 have been shipping for almost a year now.

In the beginning the Flex units were having some hard time dealing with radio interference coming from some of the Canon flashes. This interference comin from the Canon flashes had impact both on distance and reliability of the TTX units.

The good news: Pocketwizard made a 580 radio-frequency-blocking-beer-holder for the delinquent Canon flashes. They go by the code name AC5 (I can only guess that it stands for Allocation Control, or Algorithmic Collision. Go figure).

The even better news: Pocketwizard decided to provide them AC5s shields free of charge to US photographers who bought the Flex units.

The not so good news: If you are living outside of the US, this offer is not for you. Other thing is that the AC5s will be free only till the end of the month.

Good news again: photographer Daniel Aqua posted a DIY tutorial on the Flickr pool that shows how to build a Canon shield at home.[Read More…]

Don’t Give Up On Your GI Trigger – Three Ways To Revive It When It Looks Dead

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So you hacked yourself a gadget infinity flash radio slave and you are happy. You are shooting off camera flash and things work splendid. Actually, you really wanted a pair of pocketwizards, but it was 26 big ones Vs. 360, so it’s GI. Actually they work quite well. They worked quite well for a long while now. Then a crisis. Flash wont fire. 

Camera clicks, but flash won’t fire. Darn! It was working just a second ago. What could have gone wrong? (Or in the words that the guys from the internet service hear 1000 times a day – I did not touch it.)

Here are three things to check before giving up on your cactus remotes.
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