I just got an extra-cheap IR trigger via e-bay (“Yinyan”). So far it’s looking cheap-and-cheerful as opposed to trash-can bait, due to its utter simplicity. It takes 4 AA batteries, has an on-off switch and a “ready” light, and that’s about it. Knock wood that it won’t just die after a hundred shots.

I had been using either my pop-up flash or my nikon speedlight to trigger the studio flashes, setting the on-camera flash to manual and very low power. But the pop up tends to overheat and shut down if I shoot quickly, and the speedlight is overkill. So if the cheap IR trigger remains cheerful, I’ll be cheerful too.

(IR triggers seem to be going out of style, due to radio triggers dropping in price. But I worry about radio interference, especially when I’m at Fetishcon with lots of people shooting in their hotel rooms. One of the stated advantages of radio triggers is that they can trigger strobes around corners or through walls – but I want to avoid triggering the other guy’s strobes in the room next door, and I even more want to avoid my strobes being triggered by his setup.)