What's up with the INON sensor thingy?

Show's over. They showed it. What's the big secret? What does it do? Do I want one?

Hi Scorpio,

I don't know too much about it.

It's a device that converts the electrical signal from the camera's hot-shoe into a burst or bursts of light. The Inon fiber optics come out of the controller and go to their strobes. If you own some of the Inon "S" series strobes that don't have electrical sync sockets then this is the only route to go if you are using a DSLR. I don't know any more about it than that.

Some questions: Does a Nikon or Canon camera "think" that a D-TTL or E-TTL strobe is attached and fire preflashes? Don't know.

Will the device be better than using a traditional sync cord from the housing to the strobes? Don't know.

Will the device be available for purchase in the US? Don't know. It appears that some patent issues will need to be resolved first before that can happen.

From what I gather from talking w/ Mark Rupert w/ Inon, the engineers at Inon just don't like to "mix electricity and water" so they prefer to use fiber optic sync cords and sensors.

Cheers

James