Yongnuo YN560 Slave Mode - No Flash Triggers, No Problem!

If you have a Yongnuo YN560 Speedlight, but do not own any wireless transmitters, you can still fire your flash off-camera if you have a built-in flash on your DSLR camera. The Yongnuo YN560 (and version 2 and 3) have 2 optical slave modes that allow you fire the flash using another flash. When the optical slave on the Yongnuo YN560 sees another flash fire, it triggers itself simultaneously.

There are two different slave modes that you need to know about before you can do this. The Yongnuo YN560 has an S1 mode, which is programmed to fire when it sees another flash fire. When you're using S1, the flash that is firing has to be on manual mode in order for the Yongnuo YN560 to fire at the proper time. The flash also has an S2 mode, which is similar to S1 except it ignores the pre-flash that you get if your built-in flash is set to TTL mode.

Using the slave function on the Yongnuo YN560 speedlight can also be useful for when you have multiple flashes, but not enough receivers for all of the flashes you are using. Some of your flashes can be fired through the use of wireless triggers, while others can be fired through the use of the built in optical slave.

I hope this little tutorial helps those of you that are on a very tight budget!