Point & Shoot Off-Camera Flashing

The general consensus on flashing is that you should take the flash of the camera (take the flash off the damn camera). It just results in better (more flattering) photos In some cases this is impossible. Especially when the flash is integrated. But there's hope. There are several point & shoot camera's (P&S) that feature a hot-shoe. The Panasonic Lumix LX3 [1] is one of those camera's.

Note that this technique is nothing special. It's widely used among most photographers with dSLR's. The problem is that the use with P&S camera's is relatively unknown. Especially using more than one off-camera flashes.

All you need for some (serious) off-camera flashing is a way of 'transmitting' the flash trigger from the camera to flash-units. There are several (low-cost) brands that provide this functionality. My kit consists of a Phottix Tetra wireless trigger, and two receivers (sets you back around €40,00). Just put the transmitter in the P&S camera hot-shoe and start flashing away.

Panasonic Lumix LX3 with two off camera SB-600 flashesNote that there's no iTTL or eTTL on this Phottix remote trigger kit (or my P&S), so you have to work manually (strobist-style).

P.S. I shot the photos of the RRS L-Plate in the previous post with this set-up. Perhaps not the best example, but the ambient lighting was really crappy (still working up to some studioflashes and/or continuous studio lighting).