When you need to light up a room or want to use multiple flash units for portraits, slave flashes can be your answer. Studio flash systems incorporate slaves and some small hotshoe flashes do too. And there are some camera flashes specifically designed as a slave for your P&S digital camera.

A slave flash is triggered by the burst of light from another flash. The most common use is to have your builtin flash trigger the slave unit. Be sure you have a slave flash that’s designed for digital cameras. Digital cameras use a pre-flash for exposure and white balance calculations that can trigger older slave units.

If you need a small digital slave flash to go with your P&S camera look at the Sunpak DS-20 or their Digital Flash Kit. Nikon users can get the SB-800, although the SB-800 will work wireless with certain camera models. Some other Sunpak and Metz flash units also support a slave mode.