Pocket Wizards should I ????

Snapper73

Snapper73

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Ok just got my D3 and so i've lost the remote commander built into my old D300 to fire my Nikon Speed lights. At the moment I have a SB-600 & SB-800 but will be adding another SB-800 in the future. How many Pocket Wizards will I be looking at to get this lot up and running or should I just get the SU-800 commander for my D3 :thinking:
 
DiddyDave said:
Wireless is better than line of sightIMO, but I use Skyports as they are

a) ace, and
b) a lot cheaper than PWs and still as reliable

Just my 2p ;)

DD
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:agree:100%
Skyports are all that's needed in reality. Simple, reliable, cheaper.
 
DiddyDave said:
Wireless is better than line of sightIMO, but I use Skyports as they are

a) ace, and
b) a lot cheaper than PWs and still as reliable

Just my 2p ;)

DD
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What will be the price to get my speedlights up and running and where can I get them from.
 
Snapper73 said:
What will be the price to get my speedlights up and running and where can I get them from.
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I bought mine from http://www.theflashcentre.com/

1 transmitter and 1 receiver was £109 (I think), additional receivers are £70 (again, :thinking:), you need to ask for the additional lead for the SBs though, and they charged me £5 each for those

If there's a branch near you, collecting often means a bit of a discount, and my Leeds bunch are very knowledgeable & helpful too

DD
 
Agree, another vote for skyports.

Although why they couldn't have included little stickyback/velcro pads for the receivers, I don't know.

Believe the kit is a little more than £109 now though
 
Merovingian said:
Agree, another vote for skyports.

Although why they couldn't have included little stickyback/velcro pads for the receivers, I don't know.

Believe the kit is a little more than £109 now though
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Only bought it 3 weeks ago !!!

But price rises n all - so maybe :(

DD
 
I know pete (deigo) got some sky ports from the flash center when we where at focus should have got some then but my money was being saved for my new D3 :thumbs:
 
Wow. Increases - always increases. Strange though that the receivers are still circa £70. RobertWhites might be worth a punt for an amenable price...
 
I know everyone has different experiences but I've tried skyports, Pulsars and the usual ebay crap and have had misfiring/ghost firing/not bloody firing at all problems with all. I have some lovely pocket wizards now and couldn't be happier.

If you want a slightly cheaper option the Profoto Air Sync triggers are supposed to be excellent, are 8 channel and have most of the best features of pocket wizards. I was umming and ahhing between the two but went for the PW (and paid £50 more) simply on reputation.
 
TheBionicDan said:
I know everyone has different experiences but I've tried skyports, Pulsars and the usual ebay crap and have had misfiring/ghost firing/not bloody firing at all problems with all. I have some lovely pocket wizards now and couldn't be happier.

If you want a slightly cheaper option the Profoto Air Sync triggers are supposed to be excellent, are 8 channel and have most of the best features of pocket wizards. I was umming and ahhing between the two but went for the PW (and paid £50 more) simply on reputation.
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What speedlights do you have with your Pocket wizards and how many to you need for each speedlight :thinking:
 
I use them mainly with a flash generator and strobes so with that situation I only need two, one on camera hotshoe, one into sync port on generator.

I do have two SB900's and have never had a problem firing them both with the two PW's, even outside at some distance. Again one PW on hotshoe and one PW plugged into PC sync port on first SB900. I then just set the second SB900 in SU-4 dumb slave mode and adjust flash power manually. I probably should be using the Master/slave functions of the SB900s but that would involve reading the manual ;)

Another thing to consider is will you ever want to remotely trigger your shutter? If so the PW will fire your shutter at 12fps (which won't be useful until the D4 comes out :D ) 1600 feet away!!
 
I have a couple of SB800s which I use with PWs. One PW on the camera and the other on one of the SB800s then the other SB800 set to SU-4 (optical flash) and that works well (I've also go a couple of el-cheapo optical flashes I'll use too. For what I do, and because all my flashes have an optical reciever) I only need 2 pocketwizards.

A friend has the skyports and they are nice too but I havent really used them in anger.
 
Snapper73 said:
What speedlights do you have with your Pocket wizards and how many to you need for each speedlight :thinking:
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Pocket Wizard plus II's are 'transceivers', they transmit and receive, so one unit per device is what you need, x 1 for your camera and x 1 per speedlight.

They are very expensive but if a range of 1600ft is something you may need in future then the additional expense can be justified.

I use a set of four PW's regularly and a few times now I have used remote camera set ups also, if a range such as that is not required then pick up the skyports :thumbs:
 
I have skyports at the moment, but I'm going to punt them for the new pocketwizards when they come out. Looking forward to not having to worry about sync cables and all that *****.
 
It depends on how far apart you will be placing the flashes. The PW's do have a phenomenal range and I've seen them trigger an outdoor flash from inside a building (You can't do that with anything optical!)

If the flashguns are not too far apart you can save a small fortune by using optical triggers on the other flashes and just have one on a PW. I use Wein Peanuts that plug into my vivitars and trigger my Canon flash using the PW. Worked a treat so far :)
 
Never had a problem with my Pocket Wizards
 
It's expensive stuff that's for sure. I'm debating what route to go down myself. I wonder if it's possible to daisy chain the flash guns, so have those in line of sight using IR (or whatever) and the others out of line of sight using wireless.
 
Bloody not cheap for pocket wizards then.
I hope to have up to 4 flashs at one opint in the not to distant future.
Will need to win the lotto to afford them though...
 
KayJay said:
It's expensive stuff that's for sure. I'm debating what route to go down myself. I wonder if it's possible to daisy chain the flash guns, so have those in line of sight using IR (or whatever) and the others out of line of sight using wireless.
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Mixing triggering systems is just a recipe for a sore head and IR is often limited by bright sunlight, not that that is a major issue in Scotland :lol:
 
I'll refer you to post No 16!

Honestly you lot! It's like the blooming fast show in here sometimes!

Yes you can use just one PW and use optical triggers on the flashes so the distance work is done by the PW's. It's what I do!!!
 
AliB said:
I'll refer you to post No 16!

Honestly you lot! It's like the blooming fast show in here sometimes!

Yes you can use just one PW and use optical triggers on the flashes so the distance work is done by the PW's. It's what I do!!!
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How can you use one PW and optical triggers? :thinking::naughty:
 
I think he means trigger one flash head with PW, and let that optically trigger the other flash heads.

Not sure if that would work for a background light though...
 
SHE means just that.

I use one PW from camera to Canon 580EX. That then triggers two vivitars which have little optical slaves attached to them.

That way the PW's do the distance work while I have a cheap and cheerful solution to the problem of triggering more than one flash. Those flashes are not normally too far away from each other but I have used this setup for car shots and so long as there is a line of sight they work just fine at 10-12 feet.
 
You do know you can use an SB-800 / SB-900 as a commander too?
 
But if you want to control off camera flash why would you want the one on the camera firing?

That's why it's designed that way :)

(Though it does then become a rather expensive commander when it may be better used off camera )
 
If you want it to add to the scene you can, if you don't you can set it so it won't. Some people have shown it ALWAYS seems to add to the light even when you don't want it to but I've never had that problem (possibly just down to how crap I am :lol:). I know the SB-800/900 and SU-800 can all control 3 groups rather than just the two that the onboard camera CLS system can.

Looking at the pennies, an SU-800 costs nearly as mch as a SB-800 - if you do get another actual flash it gives you more options later should you decide to go with PW/Skyports/radio poppers (should they ever appear in the UK Grrr).
 
I was going for Skyports, but read a few reports on broken aerials and whatnot. This is completely dependent on how you treat equipment of course - they are a very good product and the vast majority of people use them without issues.

I ended up going for PW's (as that's what I really had my eyes on); they are an industry standard for a reason - reliability and durability. Saying that, if I'm only using two lights I'll go for CLS :)

Some people use an on-camera flash for fill, by the way.
 
Why would you get interference? I'm not electronics geek but a lot of radio controlled models ship with 2.4Ghz radios now. You no longer need crystals for different frequencies you just pair your transmitter to you receiver before you start and off you go.
 
Kev M said:
Why would you get interference?
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Because of the sheer amount of devices that operate within that frequency band.

Kev M said:
I'm not electronics geek but a lot of radio controlled models ship with 2.4Ghz radios now. You no longer need crystals for different frequencies you just pair your transmitter to you receiver before you start and off you go.
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That's because the crystals and the 2.4GHz band are nothing to do with each other. Totally difference frequency bands.

The crystals, which worked somewhere between 27Mhz and 72Mhz, were narrowband. That is to say that they work on extremely narrow frequencies when you look at the spectrum as a whole. You had to pick your exact frequency and channel and make sure you were the only person using it.

With 2.4GHz you're operating in a much wider frequency band, and in that band you can have many, many more channels operating at the same time. So you can 'pair' devices up on any one of these individuals channels while still operating within the 2.4Ghz spectrum.

But with so many devices using that band, you can naturally expect interference. It might not happen all the time, but you know it's going to happen when you really don't need it to. Especially when you're triggering something and you need it to work at exactly the right moment.
 
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