Everyone is talking about slaves. But what is a slave? In fact it’s a remotely placed flash controlled by transmitting a signal to it. Action sports photography often requires multiple flash set-ups for lighting a scene. Of course you can use long sync cables and wire the whole place, but using a wireless slave flash system is much easier and more comfortable. To trigger a slave, you have to connect a device to your slave flash, or both to your camera and slave flash to trigger it. Basically the market offers three kinds of devices:
1. Light Slaves (built by Metz, Wein, Hama, Kaiser, Sunpak, etc.)
Light slaves are connected to the slave flash. They receive the light from another flash and trigger the connected flash immediately. Light slaves work reliably indoors and in dark environments. The have problems in bright environments, like in daylight. They gets blinded by the sun quite easily. Another problem is that you need a flash connected to your camera, which fires to make the light slaves fire their flashes. If there are other photographers around using flashes, they might also accidentally trigger your slave flashes. Light slaves are good when starting out, because they’re cheap and widely available. The Metz Mecalux 11 is a good performer under daylight for example. Light slaves require a line of sight between slave flash and the flash setting them off.
2. IR Slaves (built by Metz, Canon, Nikon, Wein, etc.)
IR Slaves use a coded infra-red signal to trigger. This ensures no one trigger them accidentally. IR-Slave systems consists of a sender on the camera and a receiver on each slave flash. IR light is still light, so these systems suffer from the same problems as plain light slaves. They work great indoors or in dark areas, but daylight is their enemy. The range of these systems drops in daylight and they might even get blinded by the sun. IR slave system aren’t common in the skateboard photography business, because spending a few more bucks gets you a radio slave system, the king of all slaves. IR slaves require a line of sight between sender and receiver.
3. Radio Slaves (built by Quantum and LPA Design)
The mother of all slaves – radio slaves. They use a coded radio signal to trigger the flashes. You need a sender on your camera and a receiver on each flash. These systems offer the best performance under every condition. They work nearly interference free and don’t care, whether it’s dark or bright where you work. Even tough they’re the best system, they’re also the most expensive one. But you get it all, trigger confirmation, multiple frequencies, long range, no line of sight between sender and receiver is required, etc. Currently only two manufacturers make reliable radio slave systems. Quantum offers the Freewire and Radio Slave 4i system, while their competitor LPA Design offers the Pocket Wizard Plus and Pocket Wizard MultiMax. All systems work reliable, even though the LPA products are better built and offer more features for slightly more money. 
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