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2026-05-07 Zeikos Digital Professional Slave Flash

    The Zeikos Digital Professional Slave Flash (ZE-DS12) is a charming little accessory. It came out around 2010 for approximately $25. It was supposed to have a guide number of 46*—but that is strongly dependent on the ISO you have chosen (which isn’t stipulated).
Checking on it’s power, the flash produced a Guide Number of 13 with an ISO 100 film. That is so weak many built-in camera flash are probably more powerful!  Yet that could be a good thing. A lot of the time you are benefiting from an external slave flash if it adds either an accent to a subject mostly illuminated by your main flash (usually your camera’s built-in flash), or if the slave flash will illuminate an area your main flash has left dark.

    The flash has no calculator dial or tables. You might think that is an oversight, but if you are using a digital camera you can experiment until you get the correct exposure. 
    Although you can use the flash on any hotshoe, it really comes into its own syncing as a slave flash with your camera’s flash.


    And to sync with most electronic flash built into cameras, the flash gives you a choice of types of pre-flash many digital cameras use—some cameras use a series of flash to stop red-eye, some use a pre-flash to measure the exposure so the camera can be set correctly. 
    So in “slave” mode there are four choices to chose from: going from S1 for one triggering flash, to S4 for four triggering flashes. You learn what works for your camera—it should always be the same—and then that is what you set for slave use.


The flash can used on a camera’s hot shoe, or held on the unconnected bracket supplied (in slave mode).
 

The flash has a very bright “ready” red diode. There is a lower small button (just above the hotshoe) completely ignored on the instruction sheet that can be pressed to fire the flash manually. Note the Mode Select slider has Power off, Nomnal (Note: I suspect “Nomnal” should be Normal) and Slave on.
    Once it was established that the FujiFilm Z10 point-and-shoot used a single preflash to set the flash exposures, the slave flash could be set to “Slave” and “Slave Mode S2”. Equally quickly it became obvious, weak as the slave was, it would completely blow out any subject it was pointed directly at within six feet of the camera’s built-in flash.

    This shows the camera’s flash and the slave illuminating the calendar in the foreground, while the wall hanging in the background lighting was considerably evened out with mostly slave illumination. Normally in an angled flash shot like this one, the background falling off at the square of the distance would result in a much darker background.
    Shooting this breakfast table from 45º shows uneven light:the front corner is much brighter than the far counter.
    Placing the slave flash flat on its back on the same counter—so it would bounce its flash off the ceiling level with the camera’s flash—gives this result. You have to be aware simply dropping the slave flat on its back will sometimes press the open flash button hard enough the slave will fire!
The slave flash Ready light was extremely bright when the batteries were inserted the first time. Then the ready light stopped working. Also the flash does go off with a “snap” you have to get used to. There was a slight smell of burning electronics when the batteries were removed too. 
Just saying…



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