Today something went wrong with the pocket wizard.
Outside , it was cold 0 - celsius, my pocket wizard stop working, one tt1 with ac3 comanding 2 tt5 mounted with nikon - sb900.
The light on the tt5's was blink red when the flash should fire, they would not fire even directly
with the TEST button from the two tt5.
Everithing was ok, until i switched ON/OFF/ON the camera.
Ooh this is interesting. I have had a flexTT5 go down like this twice when it has been cold and each time I have switched to another, I suspected it was temp related but have not tested it yet - it was nowhere near 0 degrees either. I was trying to trigger an acuteB2 AirS/R (inbuilt PW). Batteries are half finished alkalines.
Lithium AAs won't outlast alkaline, with equivalent power of 2900mAh but with a flat discharge curve. Operating range is down to -40degF and shelf life is 10+ years. They're significantly better at low temperature; at -5degF their service life only is decreased by 20% and output decreases slowly as the temperature drops. They're also much more expensive.
Alkaline. The Energizer has 2850mAh and the new Energizer e2 has about 15% more, or 3135mAh, and both have a sloping discharge curve. Operating range is down to 0degF and shelf life is 10+ years. They're not much better at low temperature; at -5degF their service life is decreased by 60% and output drops quickly as the temperature drops below room temperature. Although they're more expensive, they're comparable to carbon-zinc in terms of cost per hour of use. ...Show more →
cordellwillis wrote:
Batteries die in cold weather.
I agree; that is probaly what happened.
When shooting in cold weather, I like to keep a spare set of batteries inside my coat where my body heat keeps them warm; and whenever the opportunity arises I will switch the cold set for a warm set. Once the cold set has warmed up, I can switch them again, and so on.
BrianO wrote:
I agree; that is probaly what happened.
When shooting in cold weather, I like to keep a spare set of batteries inside my coat where my body heat keeps them warm; and whenever the opportunity arises I will switch the cold set for a warm set. Once the cold set has warmed up, I can switch them again, and so on.
+1
Its the best insurance you can buy (keeping in your pocket).
I just did a test, stuck both TT5s in the fridge and in under 5mins they were both dead, 2mins out of the fridge and they came alive again. These units must be very voltage sensitive. Since almost all of my work is on location I'm switching batteries to lithium asap. As a backup I make sure any lighting gear I have has an optical slave, this way a popup flash or an SB800 on camera can trigger everything and I'm not up the creek.
