Mark.A
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Just finished testing out my new Cactus V5's and thought I'd put my thoughts up on here for anyone thinking of getting them. I've bought 2 of the 'Duo' sets, so got 4 transceivers altogether.
First thing that struck me was I didn't expect them to be as big as they are. I had the Yongnuo RF-602's previously and the Cactus V5's in comparison are huge. About 2 to 3 times bigger than the RF-602 receivers. It just means they won't squash into my camera rucksack like the RF-602's did.
I also think the build quality is not quite as good as the RF-602's. These feel more plasticky and less solid. Not terribly so, they're not as cheap feeling as the old chinese triggers but just not quite as solid as the RF-602's.
On the plus side they are transceivers, so each unit can be a transmitter or receiver. They also run on AAA's, so no CR2 batterys to find.
I did find the battery door is badly designed. It's the 'press in to open' type and where it's situated you tend to press it and pop it open when holding the unit to say take a flash off. No biggy though you just press it closed again.
Now the important bit, I switched from the RF-602's to the Cactus V5's to get a higher sync speed for off camera flash with my D40. The D40 can sync at any shutter speed with off camera flash, the speed is just limited by the wireless system. If you use a pc sync cord you can even sync up to 1/4000 second! With a wireless trigger you're limited by the maximum sync speed of the triggers. The RF-602's would manage to get up to 1/800 second sync speed if you held the transmitter button down halfway before you took the shot. So it was a bit fiddly.
The Cactus V5's are consistently giving me a clean sync at 1/1000 second with no messing about!
Overall I'm very happy with them.
First thing that struck me was I didn't expect them to be as big as they are. I had the Yongnuo RF-602's previously and the Cactus V5's in comparison are huge. About 2 to 3 times bigger than the RF-602 receivers. It just means they won't squash into my camera rucksack like the RF-602's did.
I also think the build quality is not quite as good as the RF-602's. These feel more plasticky and less solid. Not terribly so, they're not as cheap feeling as the old chinese triggers but just not quite as solid as the RF-602's.
On the plus side they are transceivers, so each unit can be a transmitter or receiver. They also run on AAA's, so no CR2 batterys to find.
I did find the battery door is badly designed. It's the 'press in to open' type and where it's situated you tend to press it and pop it open when holding the unit to say take a flash off. No biggy though you just press it closed again.
Now the important bit, I switched from the RF-602's to the Cactus V5's to get a higher sync speed for off camera flash with my D40. The D40 can sync at any shutter speed with off camera flash, the speed is just limited by the wireless system. If you use a pc sync cord you can even sync up to 1/4000 second! With a wireless trigger you're limited by the maximum sync speed of the triggers. The RF-602's would manage to get up to 1/800 second sync speed if you held the transmitter button down halfway before you took the shot. So it was a bit fiddly.
The Cactus V5's are consistently giving me a clean sync at 1/1000 second with no messing about!
Overall I'm very happy with them.
