I was shooting a wallride yesterday and noticed my CyberSyncs weren't working when the transmitter and receivers were not in a line of sight. The flashes were only about 15ft away, but on a concrete roof, whereas I was about 1-2 ft below the line of the roof.
I thought ABs were more reliable than that...?
PS they are new units, only a month old, so the batteries should be ok.
I was shooting a wallride yesterday and noticed my CyberSyncs weren't working when the transmitter and receivers were not in a line of sight. The flashes were only about 15ft away, but on a concrete roof, whereas I was about 1-2 ft below the line of the roof.
You could post this on the paulcbuff.com forum and get an answer directly from Buff, but I suspect that concrete roof was both thick and most certainly reinforced by steel mesh.
It seems that you were surprised to have the unit not working as you would expect.
"issues" is a strong word, and I am not sure if "reliability" is a correct term either.
Please clarify the condition so we can put it more into prespective, how thick was this concrete wall/roof? is there enough path so the signal can bounch off and reach the receiver? .
Just want to put things into prespective, please don`t get offended.
alpinekiwi wrote:
I was shooting a wallride yesterday and noticed my CyberSyncs weren't working when the transmitter and receivers were not in a line of sight. The flashes were only about 15ft away, but on a concrete roof, whereas I was about 1-2 ft below the line of the roof.
So, if I understand correctly, the receivers were above the roofline and the transmitter was below the roofline, and the roof was steel-reinforced concrete.
Also, the direct line between transmitter and receivers didn't go straight up through a thin cross-section of roof, but at an angle through a thick path of the roof.
Is that correct?
Cyber Syncs operate in the 2.4 gigaHertz frequencies, and those UHF frequencies are "line of sight" -- not in the visual sense; they will go through walls that are not radio-opaque, but they will not curve or skip like HF frequency radio signals, nor penetrate dense materials as ELF frequencies can.
I don't think there's a problem with your units; I just think this particular scenario exceeded their (or any similar units') capabilities.
alpinekiwi wrote:
...PS they are new units, only a month old, so the batteries should be ok.
That would depend on how fresh the batteries were when installed, and how much they've been used in the last month.
Battery power also depends on the ambient temperature; if it was really cold the batteries would be weaker than if it was warm.
I think 'issues' and 'reliablity' were the wrong words. I am very happy with the ABs, they work flawlessly, I just had no idea of the frequency issues (there's that word again!) as mentioned by BrianO above. That actually explains a lot. Cheers.
I have no problems with these sorts of limitations, as long as I am aware of them (as I now am) and can work around them.
That's me at the bottom of the pic with 1x flash about 15-20ft away on the rooftop with another flash below/right of the rider. The aerial of the transmitter is just sticking up to allow the two to 'see' each other. It actually produced a pretty cool shot from that viewpoint anyway, so all ended well...
If I come up against this again, I can always set one transmitter to 'repeat' mode.
alpinekiwi wrote:
...If I come up against this again, I can always set one transmitter to 'repeat' mode.
That's a very handy feature to have.
Comparing it to radio communications again, I'm a transit supervisor in the hilly Seattle area. Our fleet uses UHF radios, and we have six repeaters scattered on hills and mountains across our two-county service area so we can reach the coaches when they're down in valleys or surrounded by buildings (and yet we still have a few weak spots).
Having "repeaters" for flash opens up all kinds of possibilites in difficult situations.
[Edit]
Something else just occurred to me: the Cyber Syncs connect to the ABs using American standard RJ-11 telephone cord. You could order some fairly long lengths of RJ-11 cord and then remote-mount the Cyber Syncs where they'd be in radio "sight" of the transmitter even if the strobe itself wasn't.
I've never tried it (since I don't own any AB gear), but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work as long as the cord isn't ridiculously long.
[Mr. Buff, if you see this, can you comment on the feasibility?]
