# SB90x on PW/Canon



## briansquibb (May 13, 2012)

I am building a gang flash and have been offered the loan of some SB900's

I have PW mini and flex for my 580 - is there a simple way of adding Nikon flash either in iTTL mode (preferably) or manual mode?

Will just putting the SB's on a Nikon flex be enogh to add them in the group?

I am up to a gang of 8 working at the moment

Thanks

Brian


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## JerryKnight (May 15, 2012)

iTTL? Absolutely not. E-TTL and iTTL are two entirely different systems with different hotshoe connections. There's no way they can work together.

Manual? Almost certainly. Even though the TTL functions use different hotshoe pins, the manual activation should use the standard hotshoe center pin.


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## briansquibb (May 15, 2012)

er - I was talking about using Pocket Wizard flex to mount the speedlights on - so pin outs are irrelevant

The question is - when the mini from a canon sends the instructions to the Nikon flex will the control chanels understand each other?


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## JerryKnight (May 15, 2012)

You're missing my point. The mini and flex are basically taking the (E/i)-TTL information flowing between the camera and the flash (through the hotshoe) and duplicating it across the radio link. Since Nikon cameras and flashes speak an entirely different language (through the different hotshoe pins) than Canon cameras and flashes, there is absolutely no way for them to talk to each other. Maybe theoretically, through a translator device, but nobody has invented such a thing.

Edit: Maybe you're saying you hypothetically were to have a Nikon-specific Flex and a Canon-specific Mini. It still won't work, except in the basic manual Pocketwizard channels (ie. the Plus2 compatible channels) that both should support. 

It's like talking on a walkie-talkie to someone who speaks Chinese. You still have to know Chinese to talk to them, even though it's over a radio. An oversimplification, yes, but it's demonstrates my point.


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## briansquibb (May 15, 2012)

JerryKnight said:


> You're missing my point. The mini and flex are basically taking the (E/i)-TTL information flowing between the camera and the flash (through the hotshoe) and duplicating it across the radio link. Since Nikon cameras and flashes speak an entirely different language (through the different hotshoe pins) than Canon cameras and flashes, there is absolutely no way for them to talk to each other. Maybe theoretically, through a translator device, but nobody has invented such a thing.
> 
> Edit: Maybe you're saying you hypothetically were to have a Nikon-specific Flex and a Canon-specific Mini. It still won't work, except in the basic manual Pocketwizard channels (ie. the Plus2 compatible channels) that both should support.
> 
> It's like talking on a walkie-talkie to someone who speaks Chinese. You still have to know Chinese to talk to them, even though it's over a radio. An oversimplification, yes, but it's demonstrates my point.




As I originally said it looks like I would have to use Nikon flash in manual mode - not too bad but just tedious to set a large number. I was hoping that there was a translator out there - there are loads of examples of Nikon on Canon around - but these are based on doing it cheap

So back to hunting for used 580EX again. David Hobby uses 16 so that looks like a good target.

Now to work out how to get them strobing at the same time


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