alpinekiwi Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Just had this email from Pocket Wizard:
Thanks for your email, I'm sorry to hear you were having trouble with your radios. I'm sure you don't have a plate in your head or emitting weird radio signals yourself, but there's a very good chance your flashes could be the culprit.
Range and reception are constant battles for any radio manufacturer, and we have done our best to create reliable products that work well in a variety of situations. This reliability, however, can be compromised by certain Canon flashes that emit a significant amount of RF interference (“noise”) right around the frequency range that PocketWizard radios use.
The flashes that are the most likely to emit this interference are the 430EX (but not the 430EX II), 580EX, and 580EX II. We've developed a number of range-extending solutions for these flashes, which can increase the useable distance and reliability of triggering.
The amount of "noise" the flashes emit can vary wildly. We've had customers who have flashes that pose no issues whatsoever and flashes that only let the radios get about 5 feet away before they cause a problem. Most fall somewhere in the middle.
We have compiled a detailed list of our range extending recommendations here: http://www.pocketwizard.com/inspirations/technology/range/
Here are a couple ideas that are a little more specific to using the Plus radios:
-You can use a ferrite choke (most likely available at a place like Radio Shack) on the PC cable.
-Be sure to mount your radio's antenna above the flash, keep it as vertical as possible
-Be sure no metal is touching your flash-if you have it in a bracket or hot shoe of the camera, the flash may think it needs to receive information from the camera and not want to receive it from the cable. You can use a piece of gaffer's tape to cover the contacts.
One other thing to keep in mind: high water content items can absorb radio waves-trees are mostly made of water.
And did you have the flashes mounted low to the ground? The ground tends to soak up radio waves as well.
Setting the radios to Long Distance mode might have helped in this situation.
A couple other things to check: if you have not yet updated the firmware in the radios, please do so, here's a link: http://wiki.pocketwizard.com/index.php?title=Getting_Started
And if you have already done that, a good reset is always a good idea. Hold in the test button as you turn it on, you should see TxRx Ch17, with all 4 Zones active.
I'm so sorry you had trouble on a shoot, but hopefully this will help solve the issue.
Please let me know if this helps, thank you.
So there you are. I'll give it to PW, they are great at getting back to customers. That was a good detailed response in a very short time.
However, it has brought to light an issue I was not aware of with my 580 EXii flashes. I have done a bit more research now I know what the problem is and I find myself with wanting to not only sell my Pocket Wizard radios, but also my Canon flashes.
For the price, I am looking at Yungnuo's entire TTL system. The ability to control up to 3 flashes directly from the YN 622N transmitter is amazing. Add to that the fact that I could buy a controller-transmitter, 3x recievers (with ETTL) and 3x flashes all from Yungnuo for the same price as a single Canon 580 EXii.
How screwed up is that?!!!
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