Remote Flash Firing Gizmos

[Frank Petronio]

So I have to use 4x5/strobe for a project and I always used Pocket Wizards and Quantums back in the day... but I sold em with the old strobes a few years ago.

Short of buying new or a $150 used one on eBay -- which is iffy -- are there any cheaper attractive options, like good Chinese copies for $29.95?

Even if I bought two I'd be ahead. They seem like something easy to do...

I just like them over cords because I hate to expose the digital test camera to any harmful voltage spikes. And less cords to trip over.

(All those terrorists must be using something like these, right?)

[anchored]

Frank - Stay away from the eBay cheap units (called "Cactus"). My son bought a set to try. Range is extremely limited (30-feet), and they are prone to misfiring (a lot!!!). Son became frustrated with misfiring even when very close to the camera.

A cheaper than Pocket Wizards are Elinchrome Skyports.... that's what I use. Range is phenomenal (test fired outside at 900-feet and never misfired). Main difference from Pocket Wizards are the sender and receiver are separate units... think a kit with sender/receiver a bit less than $200... and extra receivers about $120-ish.

My son (who's into studio work and portraits and lighting heavily) tells me in a few months a new setup called "Radio Poppers" are supposed to be coming out. Will be around $50 per unit he says, with very long range. I've personally seen nothing of them yet, nor have I attempted to do any searches or research.

[David A. Goldfarb]

(All those terrorists must be using something like these, right?)

Cell phones. There's got to be a way to program a cell phone to fire flash units, if they're good enough for IEDs. Of course it would be really inconvenient to have to dial a phone number every time you wanted to make an exposure.

[Sheldon N]

After a lot of research I just picked up a set of Skyports... $189 at B&H for the transmitter/receiver together.

They're supposed to arrive in the mail today!

[Ron Marshall]

http://www.alienbees.com/cybersync.html

[eric black]

used underwater strobes offer some pretty decent bang for the buck- they typically have slave function built in so all you need is a primary flash to trigger them, high guide numbers and most have lower settings and diffusers and reflectors can be used to attenuate the output. They are cheap lately because digital underwater requires newer strobes that have more finely tuned output control than the old Full, 1/2, 1/4 output- might be worth an experiment

[Nick_3536]

I've got a set off Ebay. Mine are battery free on the receiver. You plug the strobe into the receiver to power it. This way you don't end up with weak batteries which seem to cause lots of problems with the battery units. Last I checked they'd been upgraded to have multiple channels. I think I saw 16 channels.

Range on mine are reasonable. Won't work down a football field but they should be fine indoors.

Price? I think most people end up buying a handfull. I plugged a sender into the camera. One into the flash meter. It's cheaper to buy multiple sets then to just buy one receiver and then extra senders. Or if you need multiple receivers for your lights. Of course this may have changed since I bought mine.

The things are just garage door openers really. How expensive is a garage remote?

[Nick_3536]

One more thing. Mine sure LOOK ALOT like the Speedotron remotes. Or did when I bought mine.

[Jim Bradley]

If you want to be bleeding edge have a look at:

[Jim Bradley]

Oops fat fingered and pushed the wrong button
http://www.radiopopper.com/Here is the link

[Helen Bach]

Cell phones. There's got to be a way to program a cell phone to fire flash units, if they're good enough for IEDs. Of course it would be really inconvenient to have to dial a phone number every time you wanted to make an exposure.

I think that the other drawback would be that you would have to have three cell phones (one to talk to the art director, one to talk to your assistant, and one to fire the flash) and I only have two hands. Can you have more than one line on a cell phone? "Speedo on line 6 calling for you."

Best,
Helen

[Ed Richards]

Light triggered slaves are really cheap, and a tiny flash on the camera to trigger them will not affect the overall lighting.

[Harold_4074]

Light triggered slaves are really cheap, and a tiny flash on the camera to trigger them will not affect the overall lighting.

And the cheap slave triggers work in the infrared, so a red filter over the tiny camera flash can help to eliminate unwanted glints, without much affecting the slave. This is a useful trick when working with a cheesy digital camera that doesn't have flash sync...