I have seen a few different types of hot shoe adapters and flash triggers for the NEX range of cameras over the last few years. And I have been very happy with the simple JJC MSA-10 (ISO hot shoe adapter for nex) that I have been using, but last week i sew a dedicated trigger and receiver for only 14€  and thought I would give it a try.

My set was branded with the name WanSen but they may be distributed under several different names

Features

This Hotshoe adapter could let your NEX series camera can use the common transmitter to control the receiver to take the good picture 16 channels with hot shoe connector for external flashes

TransmitterPower: 23A 12V mini battery (not included)

Receiver power:AAA alkaline battery (not included)

Work distance:<=30 m Work frequency:433 Mhz

SYNC Speed: 1/160th to 1/250s (depending on camera model)

I have tested them with a NEX c3 and NEX5 and found that the maximum sync speed I could achieve was 1/200th , but this may very from model to model. One nice feature is a PC terminal on both trigger and receiver so you can easily  fire studio flashes and many other devices. And with a bit of searching other people have tested successfully them on  SONY NEX 3 5 5N 5C 5R.

Although the trigger has a ISO hotshot (allowing you to add a on camera flash as well) it look kind of flimsy. It is actually more stable then it looks but i just didn’t feel right adding the extra weight of a flash to the small mount on the camera. Another problem I had with both cameras I tested them is that the NEX cameras use an intelligent preview system (you also find this in the Alpha SLT cameras), but unlike the  SLT Alpha range I couldn’t find a menu point to turn this function off. This has no affect on your final photo, but it makes it impossible to use manual focus lenses in low light. And with AF lenses I could only see an image on the back screen due to the AF assist lamp lighting up my subject. OK the NEX was never designed to be used as a Strobist style camera and so the engineers probably never thought about letting you disable this function.

The tripod thread on the bottom of the receiver makes it easy to add to any standard light stand etc. But as the set only comes with 1 receiver you will need to buy a second complete set if you want to add another flash, this isn’t very expensive but IMHO charging a few euro more and sending the set with 2 receivers to start with would be a nice idea. So this set really is only for NEX users that want to play around with one flash (yes you can use optical slave triggers etc but I have never been a big fan of them). If you want to try out more complicated lighting set up then a JJC MSA-10 (ISO hot shoe adapter for nex) would probably serve your needs better as you can use any existing ISO hot shoe triggers you already have.

WanSen and Sony NEX 5

What I have done is set up a NEX c3 with a Sigma 30mm 2.8 lens, Wan Sen trigger and reciever with a Yongnuo YN-560 in a small camera bag (inc a light stand and  shoot through umbrella). This way I have a nice light portrait kit that actually comprises of very cheap equipment but delivers great result.

Supported flashes include:

·Canon SpeedLite 580EX II, 580EX, 550EX, 540EZ, 520EZ, 430EZ,430EX, 430EX II, 420EX, 420EZ, 380EX;
·Nikon SpeedLite SB900, SB-800, SB-600, SB-28, SB-27, SB-26,SB-25, SB-24;
·Olympus FL-50R, FL-50, FL-36R, FL-36;
·Pentax AF-540 FGZ, AF-360 FGZ, AF-400 FT, AF-240 FT;
·Sigma EF-530 DG Super, EF-500 DG Super, EF-430;
·Sunpak Auto 2000DZ, 622 Pro, 433AF, 433D, 383, 355AF, 344D, 333D;
·Vivitar 285HV, DF-400MZ, DF-340MZ, 2700;
·Other flash models with a trigger voltage of 12V or lower