My new best friend.

I just picked up a Nikon SB-900 today to add to my lighting arsenal—it will be a good addition alongside my year-old SB-600. I needed a second flash, and instead of going with a Vivtar, or a Metz, or a Sunpak, I figured I might aswell splurge on an SB-900 and get something that will last me for a while. Not to say the aforementioned brands won’t last, but the SB-900 has some features that were a easy sell for me—specifically the optical slave mode.

As my gear stands now, I only have one wireless receiver, so to trigger a second flash wirelessly, I would have to pick up a second receiver from Gadget Infinity. With the SB-900, I can stick the receiver on my SB-600, and when that flash pops, it will trigger the SB-900 optically. Another reason for the SB-900: I have a shoot coming up where I plan to use a ringflash on camera with the SB-600 and SB-900 off camera. But because the D90 doesn’t have a PC port on camera, I can’t sync to anything off camera as the ring flash will be using the hot shoe. My solution is to set the Sb-900 to optical slave mode—thanks to strobist for the how-to—and attach my wireless transmitter to it, then attach the wireless receiver to the SB-600. When I hit the shutter button on camera, it will pop the ringflash via hot shoe, which will then trigger the SB-900 via optical slave, which will then trigger SB-600 via wireless receiver. Sounds complicated, but it works!