Radio Slave

I have looked about and seen inexpensive battery powered radio

slaves at retail locations (Glazer's Lighting Store, Seattle) but

have not found many such sources on the net. While I would love a

fancy unit (i.e., Pocket Wizard and such), the budget simply will

not cover it. My main goal is to lose the sync cord I have been

using. And I need units that can be used in the field without

access to AC.

 

In short, does anyone have any links to retailers and manufacturers

of inexpensive radio slave?

 

thanks,

 

Sean

I will agree that Pocket Wizard's are pricey,but more reliable than the old Quantum radio gear.Cant you use optical slaves in this situation,they are a fraction of the cost of radio's?They work well except outdoors over distance,or near other people's flashes.

on ebay, there are radio slaves that are sellin for 50 bucks buy it now, for a reciever and transmitter. i bought one of these and also an extra reciever, which was $45 although it is probably lower now. anyways, these things are made out of cheap plastic and are very small and light. when i first got the set, both of the two receivers worked, then one reveiver stopped working for no apparent reason. i sent the receiver back and got another one...that did not work, straight out of the box. the guy seems very cooperative and i'll be sending it back any day now. i think these are worth a try because i know a few people who have bought these and have had no problems with them, plus the guy said i could return it for my full money back. here is a link to the one i bought, but there appears to be others on there now too. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=30087&item=3827868116&rd=1

I lived in a rather old house. There were no electrical switches so I had to adapt. I bought a $10 wireless door chime at home depot. One day, while shooting at home with my $300 radio slaves, the door chime rang every time I took a shot. The same contraption in the $300 radio slave was in my cheap $10 Door chime. If you are smart enough to disconnect the speaker in the chime and add a pc connector or wire a pc cord to connect to flash and camera, you can get away with a good quality radio slave for under $20.

Good luck.

Sean,

 

I use one of the inexpensive sets illustrated in the *Bay link above without any problems or complaints. Really suits my needs with an older set of Novatron lights and a Digital Rebel.

Thank you all. I will look into the *bay solution. For most of my needs, standard slaves would work, but there are the situations that come up a few times a year when they would not and that motivates the desire for radio slaves. As it stands I find using a PC cord a bit of an annoyance and I know I will trip over it some day. But getting a transmitter and two or three receivers would cover my needs for years (and will save some $$$ towards the proper studio lights I want ;o).

are we not allowed to say ebay or something?

Hi there!

 

I am also very interested in that eba* radio transmitter and receiver, as I am tired of cables and IR-stuff.

Has anyone made (good) experiences with this radio trigger in combination with the Canon 10D or Digital rebel?

I am a little bit aware of the voltage...

 

Thank you,

Chris

Chris - see my comment above. I have had very good service with the inexpensive radio setup in the eBay link.

I just picked one up branded as "Morris Co." yesterday in Seattle. I payed a little extra so I could test the unit before leaving the store. I also picked up an umbrella & umbrella clamp with hotshoe mount.

 

The only issue is hooking everthing up. Nobody had the connector I wanted and I had to improvise (this was expected). After an annoying search for a female 1/4 inch mono plug with a small amount of wire attached to it I found a splitter with two male 1/4 inch mono plugs and one female plug at Radio Shack (others had stereo cables but not mono). I snipped one of the male connectors off and soldered it into the snipped off end of a male PC to hotshoe connector. Using multiple converters one could make a connection, but I feel a good solder will give me a better connection than multiple converters (1/4" male mono plug->1/8" male mono plug->1/8" female mono->male PC->female PC->hotshoe) and it makes less parts to lose in the field.

 

It seems to perform reasonably well, but leaves me with some timeout issues with standby mode on my flash. Time to see if I can increase the standby-mode timeout.

 

thanks all,

 

Sean

I've been thinking of making a transmiter for my flashes. I've been looking all around for circuits and stuff and I haven't found anything yet. Buying even a cheap model isn't an option due to shipping prices to Portugal. Anyways I've found some info on some chips that may be usefull for anyone with electronics knowledge and wiling to try and design a circuit.

 

What I've found that might be of great interest are the TWS 434 chips. Its a complete 434Mhz transmitter , and its addressable to keep it from mixing with other transmitters/receivers. The chip costs about 8 bucks, and all you've got to do is work around it to get the right signal out. I'm not even worring about ttls and stuff like that cause my "working" flashes don't have that funcionality.

 

There ar also reciever chips for the transmitter at about the same price. I hope to be able to work on this soon. But if anybody is interreseted in trying, go for it, and then send some feedback.. to get some info flowing around.

 

 

Mike