New pocket wizards PlusX
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meonshore
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- Mike
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Significantly better than £170 for a single transmitter/receiver - which is what the PlusIIs were or £250-300 for the Multimax.
Sometimes all you need is a basic, bulletproof, reliable, manual receiver - and this fits the bill.
Having used the cheap Chinese radio triggers and found their limitations I have a decent set of manual Pocketwizards which have lasted me years of regular use. As and when they fail I'll replace them with these or the PlusIII models.
Never interested in the TTL versions. Now they are expensive....
Sometimes all you need is a basic, bulletproof, reliable, manual receiver - and this fits the bill.
Having used the cheap Chinese radio triggers and found their limitations I have a decent set of manual Pocketwizards which have lasted me years of regular use. As and when they fail I'll replace them with these or the PlusIII models.
Never interested in the TTL versions. Now they are expensive....
HoppyUK
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Only a few years ago, PW had the radio trigger business pretty much to themselves, and a lot of professionals built up quite a number of PW triggers using their radio frequency. For them, the fact that these new triggers are compatible with older models perhaps adds up to a compelling reason. They're also made in the US, which certainly appeals to Americans (and at least partly explains the cost).
For anyone else, IMHO, you can get much better triggers for far less money.
HoppyUK
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There are lots about now Mike. I use Phottix Strato II. It has that Quad Zone feature that PW Plus-3 has, but mainly because of the design and speed.
Transmitter hot-shoe has TTL pass-though so you can have auto-TTL with an on-camera (or corded) gun with remotes on manual - can be handy. And the design is good - all controls accessible, screw-down feet, remote wake-up, come with all cables etc. I can get a pretty clean 1/320sec on my 7D (only with short duration guns).
They cost a bit more than most, like £100 a set. Hahnel Combi is probably my favourite budget trigger (£50 a set) but I still use my YN 602 because they work just fine and I've got a lot of them. They lose 1/3rd stop x-sync speed though, if that's important.
If I had newer guns, I would probably go straight for full auto-TTL Yongnuo 622 (just announced for Nikon) but they don't work fully with my older Canon 580EX guns. They need EXII-type guns that can be controlled by the in-camera menus. Need to check details of functionality for Nikon with all these things.
I also have great affection for PW's auto-TTL Mini/Flex system. It's maybe a bit clunky compared to some but they have some unique performance advantages like both Peak and Tail HyperSync, enhanced second-curtain sync and enhanced high speed sync, though this latter feature works rather better on Canons than Nikon. Nikons gain faster recyling in HSS mode, but no extra brightness.
It's hard to keep up with all these new triggers. There's a new one announced every week it seems, but having tested a lot of them they all seem to do the basic triggering job quite well and reliably.