Best option for wireless shooting

[orcama60]

<p>Hi folks, I do have two Nikon speedlights, the SB-800 and the SB-700. I am trying to decide what would be my best choice to wireless trigger those units, if either with the SU-800 ( expensive ) or with a Pocket wizard or the newest radio poppers. Until now, anytime I want to shoot wireless, I use one of those units as a commander and the other as a slave with umbrella. My Nikon D300 small speedlight can also serve as a commander but I don't want to use that light in my shooting and I know there is a way to shut it off ( kind of ), but I would prefer a more reliable unit, like the SU-800 or the cheapest radio transmitter. </p>

<p>I am shooting weddings sometimes and portraits. In your experience, what would be my best option here ? The SC-28 / 29 wired cord is a good choice but limited to a max distance at about 5 - 6 feet away from camera and sometimes I need more than that. So, definitely I need longer working distance and again, what do you think I should get. This will be my first dedicated wireless unit to buy and honestly, I would not want to spend hundreds on it. Please advise and thank you so much in advance for you help.</p>

<p>Best regards, <br>

Maurice</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Just to be clear: you can set the pop-up commander to "--" so that it contributes essentially nothing to the exposure. Then you can use an under-$15 Nikon SG-3IR to block any visible light from the pop-up (that you might notice as reflections from some objects in the shot) as command signals are sent during the exposure. <br /><br />Obviously the pop-up (as well as either of your speedlights or the SU-800) has limits when comes to reliable triggering in certain conditions and over greater distances.<br /><br />There are lots of radio-based options. The first thing to know, though, is how you shoot. Do you need iTTL interaction, or just simple triggering?</p>

[tobiasfeltus]

<p>For non iTTL systems, I wrote a blog post on my experience, which you may find useful.<br>

http://tobiasfeltus.com/blog/2011/pocketwizards-how-to-buy-them-second-hand/</p>

[orcama60]

<p>Thanks guys. Matt, I am new to this but I guess I would like to have iTTL capability. Most of the time, that is what I use in my speedlight setup. Nevertheless, when you say "simple triggering", does this means that you could use any type of setup in your speedlight ( iTTL, manual, etc ) and still be able to trigger the speedlight ? What's the difference please ?</p>

<p>Best regards,<br>

Maurice.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>Using i-TTL with multiple light setups is asking for inconsistent results IMHO. How should the camera "know" which light is supposed to be supplying the key and which the fill? Sure, you can apply some minus compensation to one or more lights, but the camera meters only the total amount of light, so your key may well vary in brightness.</p>

<p>That aside. Radio triggers are far more reliable than optical methods like CLS or the SU-800, and unless you're in a papparazzi scrum or working next to a radio station, I see no reason why cheap triggers shouldn't work just as reliably as expensive ones. I've never had my cheap Chinese radio triggers let me down in over two years, whereas CLS has proven itself unreliable on nearly every occasion I've tried to use it.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Simple triggering is just that: when the transmitting unit says "go!" the slave units fire. No back-and-forth, no metering pulses, no integration between the flash and camera's sense of the exposure. You need to set the power on the strobes, and know that that's the power at which they're fire. Manual power, and usually manual exposure on the camera, too. But if you can work like that, you've got all sorts of choices when it comes to reasonably priced triggering units.</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Keep in mind that the SU-800 is a flash just like any other flash so it will not work better than using any of your flashes as master. The SU800 lacks any visible light so it might not be obvious that it's actually a flash.</p>

<p>So if you want better reliability you need to use radio triggers. But if you want TTL capability it is going to get expensive fast. Right now the Radiopoppers seems to be the most reliable one but kind of a hack as you still need to have a flash or SU800 on your camera. The pocketwizards flex and mini are the most feature rich but still not a fully mature 100% reliable product for all users. Pick your poison.</p>

<p>If you can live without TTL when shooting wireless then there are plenty of options in all price ranges.</p>

<p>In a year or two Nikon will have radio control in their flash units and SU800 just like Canon have with their 600EX-RT and ST-E3-RT. In the future wireless flash using radio will be an expected feature.</p>

<p> </p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Rodeo: "... <em>How should the camera "know" which light is supposed to be supplying the key and which the fill?</em> ..."</p>

<p>I think it works this way: As you point out, the system doesn't know the purpose of the various lights. However, you have presumably adjusted the exposure compensation for each light in your group. This means that although the total output hasn't been specified, the ratio of outputs of the various lights has been fixed. The total light returned to the camera is then metered, Nikon style black magic processing is done, and when enough light has been received by the camera, it sends out a master quench signal and all the lights shut down. If all works well, the overall exposure and the various ratios should be good.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I've never seen a complete technical description of the process by Nikon, so the above guess could easily be wrong. I keep meaning to take a bunch of my CLS flashes into the lab and do some measurements to see if I can figure out their system, but haven't got around to it yet.</p>

<p>Rodeo: <em>"Using i-TTL with multiple light setups is asking for inconsistent results IMHO..."</em></p>

<p>I agree completely, but not quite for the reason you gave. I think the inconsistency is due to classic problems such as the camera not being smart enough to figure out that if I aim the central sensor at the groom's tux, I still want the same exposure as if I had aimed it at their faces or aimed it at the bride's dress. It can also get easily get fooled by it trying to rein in intentional strong rim lighting for classic "first dance" shots, inadvertently having one of the remote flashes in the picture, etc.. So, like you, I'm also a big fan of manual control. That being said, remote manual control of the ratios (but not the total amount) is awfully nice, and, at least this seems to work properly most of the time with Nikon's CLS system.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[orcama60]

<p><em>Radio triggers are far more reliable than optical methods like CLS or the SU-800, and unless you're in a papparazzi scrum or working next to a radio station, I see no reason why cheap triggers shouldn't work just as reliably as expensive ones ....</em><br>

<em>>> </em>That is exactly why I posted this question, that I don't know what to get. If radio trigger is the answer, then I go for, but which one to be exact ? Let's put it this way, I do have $500 to invest on this, so, with this kind of budget, what would you get if you were in my shoes ? </p>

 

[frank_skomial]

<p><em>"Using i-TTL with multiple light setups ... but the cmera meters only the total amount of light" </em> - typical statement from people who do not understand Nikon CLS, but it could be true for Pocket Wizard new method where all Nikon remote CLS flashes operate in the iTTL mode, and not in the CLS REMOTE mode.</p>

<p>In multiple flash setup with Nikon CLS commander, each flash group light is evaluated separately during test. The number of pre-flashes during testing is varying as needed by test results and complexity of flashes setup. Varying number of pre-flashes usually makes unreliable use of so called Digital Slave Triggers, that allow to skip a number of preflashes, even if that number is adjustable.</p>

<p> </p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Frank, do you have a reference to the details you described? I would love to read more about it.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Tom, for more info how CLS works you could check out this:<br>

http://dptnt.com/2009/11/nikon-cls-advanced-wireless-lighting-part-ii/</p>

<p>And search the net for Nikon CLS protocol if you want more info.</p>

<p>The ttl pocketwizards works the same way. The camera think it has a CLS master like the SU800 in the hotshoe. The camera orders the "CLS master" to initiate preflashes for each group, set the power and everything else that needs to be done. The pocketwizard transmitter communicates with the camera body through iTTL protocol through the hotshoe. It then communicates this to the pocketwizard receivers using radio communication and the pocketwizards controlTL protocol. The pocketwizard receivers listens and communicate the command to their attached Nikon flash through iTTL communication via the hotshoe.</p>

<p>The operation of the radio poppers is simpler. The radiopopper attaches to the CLS master that is attached to the hotshoe of the camera. The camera communicates with the CLS master as per usual and the CLS master communicates with the CLS slaves by optical communication (many low output flashes). This is picked up by the radiopopper transmitter using induction to sense the flash firing. The radiopopper transmits each optical communcation puls to the radiopopper receiver using radio. The radiopopper receiver then communicate with the attached Nikon flash by sending light into the light sensor on the Nikon flash.<br>

<strong> </strong><br>

If one has to <strong>buy right now</strong> and <strong>reliability</strong> is the primary concern then <strong>radiopoppers</strong> is the only option.<br>

http://radiopopper.com/px-system<br>

It's $249 for the transmitter and the same for each receiver. </p>

[iversonwhite]

<p>2:1 lighting ratio using Nikon CLS.</p><div></div>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Pete, thank you very much. That was a great document to refer me to. </p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[brunogallant]

<p>I have been using the pop-up flash on my D200 to control a SB-800 and a SB-600 for years. I set it to full manual, but no power for the pop-up flash. It does not contribute to the light of the image, but as someone wrote, it can be seen on reflective surfaces. I do like to have this point of light in the eyes of my subject, as it gives them more life, as you can see in this image of mine.<br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/13214271-lg.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="536" /></p>

[stan_schurman1]

<p>You can pick up a pair of Cactus V5s for under $100.00 . They're reliable with a stated range of 300 ft although, in practice, they should be good for more. You'll have to learn to set your speedlights manually though as they don't support iTTL .</p>

[tammy_bryan]

<p>As with many posts I read, no on ever seems to answer the original question. I use my SU-800 to control my 10 flashes (SB-800s & SB-900s) along with the Pocket Wizards TT5s with great success - I shoot 75+ weddings a year. I mix and match my flashes always - some I shoot in TTL while others I shoot in manual - all controled from the SU-800 which sits atop a PW TT5. PW TT5s are about $200ea. I have 10. Enjoy! They finally let me shoot how I want without worrying about line-of-site.<br>

<a href="http://www.tammybryan.com">http://www.tammybryan.com</a> </p>

[photom]

<p>If you are using Nikon AWL compatible flashes, $230 or so for a used SU-800 is not expensive because you do not need any receivers. The question with the SU-800 is if the short distance and line of site limitations will be a problem for your needs.<br /> You may give the Pixel Kings version for Nikon a try. Does iTTL only. No remote manual power control.</p>

<p>= tommy</p>

<p>Sorry, I guess this was an old post.</p>