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I recently bought two Nissin Di866 off-camera flashes. One works absolutely fine. The other one is a rogue. Initially it ate up 3 sets of AA batteries before it started firing. Now that it has started firing, in the slave (remote) mode it fires but just a fraction before my camera shutter. I am using it with the Nikon D810. I have zeroed down to the probable cause and that is, it seems to be firing on the 'pre-flash'. Is there any way I can sort this problem? (The flash fires but my camera just can't seem to capture the light emitted from it)

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There are three possible ways you can remotely trigger the Di-866 from the D810's pop-up flash. The most probable issue you have is that you've set the pop-up flash to one system, while you've set the flash to a different one. Here are the three possible optical slave options you can use, and how you need to get them to match.

CLS

Nikon's Creative Light System is a "smart" optical slaving system that can communicate the majority of the flash hotshoe communication protocol. It uses multiple preflashes--think of it like Morse code with lights. If you've set your D810's pop-up flash into wireless commander mode, then you're trying to use CLS from the camera, and the Di-866 needs to be in TTL Wireless slave mode to properly communicate, otherwise, it will go off early.

See page 24 of the Di-866 manual.

"Dumb" optical slave with a single TTL preflash

The pop-up flash can also be taken out of CLS commander mode, and just act like a regular flash without the wireless communication preflashes. However, if you have the pop-up flash set to use iTTL automatic power control, there will still be a single preflash for metering TTL. In this case, the Nissin Di-866 has to be set to SD (Slave Digital) slave mode. It will then fire on the second flash burst it sees.

See pg. 18 of the Di-866 manual.

"Dumb" optical slave without preflash

The pop-up flash can also be put into M mode, where you dial in the power level directly, and this will eliminate any preflashes. In this case, the Di-866 needs to be set to the SF (Slave Film) slave mode to fire correctly.

See pg. 18 of the Di-866 manual.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Or use a cable. \$\endgroup\$
    – Digital Lightcraft
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 9:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DigitalLightcraft Or radio triggers. \$\endgroup\$
    – inkista
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 16:40

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