AB's + SB600 off camera?

[Redneck]

I just purchased some AlienBees to set up a studio lighting environment.
I'm wondering a little bit if I can still use an off camera Nikon SB600 at the same time. Like triggering the ABs with a sync cord while firing the SB600 remotely (Nikon D700). Or will the sync cord automatically disable the Nikon remote flash feature?

Any experiences?

[Coogie]

Well first off, you're going to have to be in all manual modes both on the camera and the flash - which means you can't use the Nikon's CLS/AWL since they use preflashes. I suppose you could use a TTL cord like the SC-28 for the sb-600 and the sync port for the AB, but that's not very useful so the easiest thing would be to use the SB-600 as a slave.

Unfortunately unlike the SB800 and 900, the SB-600 doesn't have a built in SU-4 mode so you'd need to buy an optical trigger. I like the stuff flashzebra has. You'd need one of these slaves:
FlashZebra.com: Optical Slave — Extended Range Version — with Female PC Connector — Sonia Brand (Item #0050)

and one of these hotshoe adapters that hooks into it and lets you mount the flash on a tripod or lightstand:
FlashZebra.com: Multipurpose Hotshoe Adapter (Item #0064)

Of course if you have sync cords, you can just buy one of those things and hook up the sync cord to it...

[Redneck]

Thanks so far. I'm not sure if you've understood my question.
What I had in mind was firing the AlienBees with the sync cord AND the SB600 wireless (C Master Mode) at the same time.

[Coogie]

Ok, I see what you're saying. I think it all depends on whether the D700's sync port gets disabled when the pop-up flash is up. (i don't think the sync port disables the commander mode...it's the other way around) From what I've read I think it IS disabled. According to this: Flickr: Discussing Using SU-800 with PC sync on a D200, Possible ? in Nikon CLS you could have gotten away with it if you used an SB-800 as the commander instead of the camera body.

I guess it's free to try!