Pocket Wizards a wrong decision?

[CobyPhoto]

Alot of what will work for you is dependant on the shooting you do. I have and use the Canon 580EX wireless and use it in conjunction with a Quantum T5D as well. However, you have to consider the limitations of the system. Line of sight. Canon's system is IR and you pretty much have to have line of sight to insure it triggers.

Alot of situations this will work, however when it won't, your screwed. Pocket Wizards do not require line of sight and give you alot more range for triggering. If I am working in a tight situation, and have to move a strobe behind a wall or obstacle for example to get the right light, I don't have any worry that my strobe will fire. You can't do that with Canon's IR triggered system.

Second, IF you plan on adding strobes later, you will have to then purchase a triggering system.

The pros: Cost, and the Canon system is pretty simple, light weight and easy to use.

You just have to decide what you want and where you want to go with your equipment before you purchase. If the Canon system will do what you want for most of your work, you would be crazy to invest in pocketwizards. Save the case and just get a couple of good Canon 580EX II's.

CJ

[123canon]

i have been using the ST-E2 i shoot fairly close- 60' or less indoors at a skatepark and it works great with the 430. also what i like is it will fire my cheap jtl monolights. sure, it would be great to have 1,000' range to play with but right now i don't need it.

[andyz]

123, does the line of sight ever become an issue?

[Clayton Wallace]

Line of sight.

Drives me NUTS. Why would a flash system even be designed for line of sight? Maybe the next major flash out will be Nikon Flash with built in PW mounted on a Canon body. Yeah, I can dream...oh, and the 6D or 5D2 or whatever will sync unlimited speeds with it. Man, I'm in a mood....

Darren, I don't think you'll find many that will ever say PW are a bad decision, but the timing in your learning process may just be early.

[Gateruner]

I will say that everyone in here is pretty much right on.

However, you said that you want to do alot of out door stuff. The Canon system is not bad when it works but what led me to get PW's was at an outdoor shoot and I really wanted off camera flash to off set some hot lighting and the Canon IR wouldnt work. I was pissed and that was it. Bought Pocket wizards. That is something to think about.

I would not recommend the St_E2 or whatever it is. Go for the dual flash setup with the 580 and 430, then get the Ebay triggers to learn with. They will set you back about a 100 bucks to get 2 receivers and a transmitter and that is enough to trigger 2 flashes. Then go to the Strobist.com and start learning about flash. Pocket wizards may be over kill right now but I would start learning off camera flash with the ebay stuff.

[ralph712]

What are the ebay triggers?

[AdamN]

http://www.gadgetinfinity.com/produc...66&cat=0&page=

These are the 'ebay triggers'. You can also search for 'wireless flash triggers' on ebay and a few others will come up. I have a set from Gadget infinity and have not had any problems with them at all for what I use. The only downside I have noticed, like Pete said, is the small range of the triggers. It works well up to about 50 to 70 feet and then it's useless beyond that. Although there are modifications you can do to them as well(I've done the AA battery mod myself with good results). HTH

[Wendyp]

I second Adam's advice. And Jon's too. Ettl is truly convenient, but allowing the flash to set the output will often not give you the results you want, not to mention the limitations of line of sight firing. If you use Canon speedlights as well as the Ebay triggers, you will have both options at your disposal. If you don't want to own 2 or 3 Canon speedlights, look into a Vivitar speedlight, which can be found for 40-50 bucks used.

You'll also want to add a light meter to your bag.

[wjmphoto]

Get the Vivitar 285hv flash new from B&H (or a couple of them) plus the Pocket wizards and you won't be disappointed.

Systems like Nikon and Canon do not work well in bright light and that is when you will need radio triggers like the pocket wizard to make your flash fire reliably off camera.

[jsaive]

hey wjmphoto,

spend some time at www.strobist.com if you don't know about the site yet. You will quickly want to invest in a couple PW and experiment/learn off camera flash lighting from strobist website.

good luck

J.

[MyKey]

Both have their high points and low points but for us (TriCoast) the eTTL of the Canon wireless system FAR give us better results than the PW's. We own PW's but VERY RARELY use them cause honestly for our style they simply wont work and give us the results we produce.

This is what I teach our workshops (like last weekend in McKinney) on and truly is how we capture 90 to 95% of our images.

[cmalana]

We use both Canon wireless ETTL and Pocketwizards, though unlike MyKey, I now prefer using pocketwizards over the Canon system in most situations. It definitely adds a level of complexity to your shooting (limited shutter speed options since you are now limited by the sync speed of the camera...while Canon ETTL allows use of high-speed sync; in addition to having to do very quick math w/ controlling aperture/shutter speed/iso on the fly). During a recent shoot, we went mostly with pocketwizards but had to use the Canon system when I wanted a large aperture shot that needed to be at very high shutter speeds (1/2000 or faster because of large aperture). One other thing that is great with the Canon flash system (and the ST-E2) is the ability to use the infra-red beam for focusing in dark situations (i.e. wedding receptions).

As far as the original post, I think that Eugene and Ramsey provided the right advice. Figure out where and how to position off-camera lighting and when you have that understanding down and understand the limitations, then it's time to move to full manual flash.

The elinchrom set-up would be great IF you were using elinchrom lights. Love the ability to control the power/intensity of the light from the transmitter! They are also much smaller.