Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave

Comments about Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave:

Very poor build quality. The plastic back cover is slathered with glue and mounted off center overhanging into the flash shoe slot...so the flash will not fit. OK, I;ll fix that but it doesn't matter because it fails to fire the flash at any distance...including point blank.

Don't buy

Comments about Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave:

best hot shoe to fire a second flash, large range

Comments about Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave:

I use couple of the Wein HS-XL for cave photography. They have great range. I owned a pair for several years and they both went bad at about the same time. When they went bad they lost the extra long range and have the range of a normal Wein HS. I liked the Wein HS0XL so much that I brought two more to replace the two that partially failed.

Comments about Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave:

It works on my Olympus FL40, which is what I wanted, so if it keeps working it's a ten.

Comments about Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave:

This is the most sensitive strobe slace
that I have found. The hot shoe version is more reliable than the versions that use a cable (which eventually will wear and break). It generally fires every time, even at long distances and around corners, especially in dark areas (we mainly use them for cave photography).

We've been using them for over 25 years, and the ones we haven't lost are still working fine.

A nice feature is that they never go off if one sweeps a bright light across the sensor. This is not the case for some other slaves, like the Firefly.

Some drawbacks: a) they don't seem to work on the Sunpack flashes, but do on the Vivitar ones (we use the 285HV); b) they are so sensitive that they go off if anybody else is taking pictures in the area, even fairly far away (in this case, an infrared or radio flash might be better); c) there is no way to make them ignore pre-flashes (we solve this problem by using the Manual mode on the camera); d) they cannot be set off by an old-fashioned flash bulb (which we use sometimes), like the M3B.

It seems like the ones made prior to 1990 are a bit more sensitive.

Comments about Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave:

If you are going to use a hot shoe slave, I recommend this one. Why? Because it works.
I have three other Wein slaves, and have mixed experiences with them, but this one is consistently reliable.

Features that are good to have are the cold shoe with 1/4" thread to mount onto a cold shoe support or screw onto a tripod, etc. It also has the option to use a PC cord; this means you can place the flash in an area that might possibly be out of line-reach with the main flash source and extend the hot shoe slave via the PC cord into a more direct line of sight. However, this particular slave is highly sensitive (600' range) and likely you will not encounter this need, except in very bright environments and distances.

This particular slave works best in commander/master flash manual mode which does not emit a pre-flash; for that scenario, use the HS-XL D (for digital).

The HS Hot Shoe Slave has been hit and miss for me; perhaps I got a lemon, or perhaps the 100' range reflects its diminutive sensitivity. However, the little PN Peanut Slave with 100' Range has worked flawlessly for me. It is also very inexpensive but requires a PC cord, which is sometimes an advantage.

Remember, don't use this with pre-flashes.

Comments about Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave:

It works great. I already have 3 of these slaves and so far I haven´t had any problems. They are quite sensitive and well built.

Comments about Wein HS-XL Hot Shoe Ultra Slave:

these little puppies do the job when you need your battery powered strobes to fire off outdoors in bright sunlight! I use them everywhere.