Nissin Di866 MK2 with a Canon 550D

[MercianPhotography]

Hi all,

This is my first post. I'm pulling my hair out here. I bought a Nissin DI866 Mark II after reading reviews in PhotoPlus magazine. I've never used a flash gun before and wanted to have another tool to expand and play with.

When it's directly attached to the camera I can get it to work no problem. But my understanding was that the 550D was 'wireless' and the Di866 was 'wireless', and as such I should be able to get the flash to work off-camera.

The problem is I can't get it to work off-camera, at all. I've read in the Nissin manual that for the flash to work off-camera it needs to be set to Remote as opposed to Master. I can set the Di866 to Remote and selected Channel 1 on Group A.

I don't get it. And for all the on-line searching I've done, I seem to be getting nowhere.

I'm hoping someone has the same set up and can talk me through what I'm doing wrong.

With hopeful anticipation...

[MercianPhotography]

I think I may have misunderstood the 'wireless' functionality when I bought the 550D. I'm beginning to think that the 550D cannot wirelessly trigger an off-camera flash without some sort of remote trigger. Am I going in circles? Someone else mentioned optical trigger via the 550D, but the manual doesn't say anything about optical triggers...

[MattUK]

the flash will work wirelessley in one of two ways:

either using the optical sensor on the front of the flashgun - in order to use this, you need to have your popup flash fire. The flashgun will detect your popup flash going off and instantly trigger. To do this, you need to power on the flash, then hold down the mode button so the light starts blinking.

The other way (without needing your popup flash) is to get a wirekess trigger and receiver.

[MercianPhotography]

Thanks for your info. You set me on the right path.

I've figured it out. To switch the Nissin Di866 to Slave mode, you need to navigate to the M/Av menu. Once in there, PRESS AND HOLD the SET button for TWO SECONDS. Another menu (which isn't in the manual) will appear and allow you to switch the Slave mode between SD (Slave Digital) or SF (Slave Film). For the pop-up flash to trigger the DI866 in remote, the Slave mode needs to be set to SD. It isn't by default!

All the best