Need strobe advice in a hurry

[vondo]

I'm heading to Bonaire in a month. I had wanted to get a strobe before this trip and was looking at a Z-240 setup, about $1000. It turns out I cannot swing that right now, so I'd resolved to go without a strobe and get one later. My camera is a G10 in the Canon housing.

Looking around, it looks like I might be able to put together a S-2000 setup for $600 or so, which I probably could justify. What should I do?!?! I'm thinking of the strobe plus some e-Bay arms.

I know I lose power this way and the modeling light. Do I lose auto-exposure modes that I would otherwise have this way? If I use the wireless optical connection, do I have to use the S-2000 as a slave or can I still block off the light of the built-in flash? All the exposure mode possibilities are quite confusing when you own nothing.

Finally, would this pair well with a Z-240 down the road or would having the S-2000 in the mix limit what I could do somehow in a two flash setup?

Thanks in advance for advice.

 

[dbh]

The S2000 would be a great choice IMHO. You can slave it off of the camera or use a Fiber Optic cable (the FO cable would be my choice). The sTTL will work great either way. It will pair nicely with a Z240 in the future. You can slave it off of the Z240 or once again use a FO cable.

HTH,
Dave

 

[M_Bipartitus]

If you have the fiber optic you can block most of the internal flash with tape.

Also, you can try to a lower fixed flash output that is too low to show up much on the photo, but high enough to trigger the slave.. This would require manual flash settings on the strobe.