Quantum T4D Wireless TTL with FreeXWire Tranceivers Question

I currently use pocket wizards with Sunpak 555 units. Not bad for

formals, except they are a problem to use on the fly at weddings for

dance shots, etc. No time to go out and meter and digital is

unforgiving.

 

The Quantum T4D looks interesting. Quantum claims that a shooter

can have wireless TTL control with a remote flash unit, as long as

freewire tranceivers are used.

 

Does anyone shoot using a T4D on a light stand and leave the

exposure valuse up to the flash units/tranceivers? Does this setup

work as advertised?

 

I'd be using my Nikon SB-800 flash unit on the bracket for fill,

with one tranceiver to control a T4D flash unit/transceiver on a

light stand. As far as I can tell, I should get TTL metering with

both flash units in use.

 

Comments?

if you want full TTL control you'll be better off to go with more SB-800 Speedlights tha

nwiththe Quantum set up. My understanding --which maybe outdated -- is that Quantum

never licensed Nikon's Matrix TTL technology much less iTTL technology. I've been having

pretty consistent success using a pair of SB-800's and a pair of SB-600 Spedlights

together.

Ellis - I'll ask just because I'm too lazy to look it up! Do the remote SB800 flash units fire when other flash units are going off in the vincinity? Or are they coded by channel? Is it easy to swich the remote function on and off from the master flash on your camera bracket?

 

Glas to hear of your success. The SB600 and SB800 units seem tobe very reliable. Love my SB800, just about ready to buy my second flash unit to replace SB-80 units I was using with my S2 pro.

That's a good question. I know the iTTL stuff is encoded becasue you can set the output

levels on each flash you are using , but i haven't tried the min combination with another ,

non iTTL flash system. I' ll try it over the next few days. There is a thread in this forum fro

mearlier this week titled MULTIFLASH or something similar where I posted an iamge from

my first "real" shoot with the set up.

Quantum does have D-TTL/matrix flash metering, but they still haven't come out with an i-ttl adapter. Since the control of multiple flashes with i-ttl is between the flashes, and not camera to remote flash, I don't think that you could have any non Nikon remote flash work in a TTL mode. If you have a body that works in D-TTL mode it should all work.

I've tried this just to satisfy my curiosity with Lumedyne's Auto Module. I put it on a stand with the sensor pointing away from the umbrella towards the subject and it worked great, varying output to match the subject's distance at my given F-stop. You could try that with the X flash's built-in sensor and a radio slave. This would also mean the flash's output will be "metered" (controlled) from the point of view of the light source, rather than from within the camera, which might be looking at a surface that is unlit by the flash it's trying to control. <p>I can't help but wonder if the TTL of a camera could report back to two different strobes what their individual output should be during one exposure, all based on what light strikes the camera's internal TTL sensors. How would it know what light comes from which strobe? A sensor on the strobe could easily read it's own light. The on-camera Nikon Speedlight could be TTL, but wouldn't the Quantum's output have to be independantly controlled by it's aperture guided thyristor? <p>Also, I'm not sure that there's any reason to upgrade from SB-80 to SB-800 when using the S2. I've tried both and couldn't detect any difference in performance, and decided to stay with the SB-80. The only advantage I could see was the way-cool filter kit and the fifth battery. The i-ttl capability of the SB-800 is wasted on the S2, and the SB-80 seems spot on with exposure accuracy on my S2... t