CharleyL
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 p.1 #14 · Speedlight wireless trigger and receiver advice please | |
I have big fingers, so I have stayed with the X Pro i and II transmitters. I tried these smaller transmitters that are being offered now, and quickly decided that they don't work well for me. Touch screens give me all kinds of troubles too, but over the last 6 years, since ditching my old lighting system, the Godox/Flashpoint lights and controls have done everything that I have asked of them. When there has been a problem, it has always been my fault. I seem to bump the channel selection of a light during setup more often than anything. Lights don't work when on the next channel up or down from the one selected on the transmitter. I did use this to help with quick lighting change over for a shoot when I needed to have two lighting setups for the shoot though, Each setup of 3 groups of lights were set for different channels, but all were in place otherwise, so just changing the transmitter channel to the one used by the second lights completed the lighting setup for the second part of the shoot. This worked well, and I was ready before anyone in the shoot was (change of clothing).
The XT2 is capable of five groups with five buttons along the top of the unit to select them for adjustment. I still have one of these, but don't use it much now. I bought it, along with two TT600 speedlites when first considering switching to Godox, and I stacked my old transmitter on top of it, so I could continue to use my old lights along with the new TT600. It wasn't long, maybe 3 or three shoots, before I became totally sold on going to Godox. This change was expensive, because totally switching meant replacing the five lights in my field kit, and the 9 studio strobes in my photo studio that range from 300 w/s up to 1000 w/s. My photography budget was stretched to it's limit, but I completed the changeover in about a year. I did manage to sell all of my old lights to another photographer, who was convinced that they were the best for his need, so this helped my budget considerably. I haven't looked back. Making the switch was one of my better photography decisions.
In 2025 I bought three AD200 Pro II lights, along with their accessories to replace three of the TT600 lights in my field kit, but have been using them in my studio now too. I have been making snoots for two of them from matte board and White Gaffer tape. These are rectangular in shape, for the Fresnel head, to use in a still life shoot that I am presently setting up for in my studio. I made these to slide forward and back, giving me some control of the light spread, which I want to keep very narrow for this shoot.
The X Pro transmitters show the settings of five groups on the screen, but the five displayed can be scrolled up or down over the 16 possible groups that it can control. I have had a couple of shoots that involved more than five groups, so this capability has been very helpful. More than one light can be assigned to any group, but in use they will all adjust to the same settings of the group they are set to work in. Mixing light sizes in a group does not work well unless all are the same model/power and used very close together so as to function as one light. It's usually best to assign only one light to each group, so you have the ability to separately adjust the power of each from the transmitter. All will fire at the same time no matter what group they are in, but you can select and turn on/off each group from the transmitter as you work. All of the transmitters can switch the modeling lights on and off too, but most transmitters switch all on and all off with no ability to only control just one or two. It's an all groups on or off thing. The X Pro II does have better modeling light control, although it's still not what I would prefer, and I think it's the only one that offers this better control, although I have not used any of the latest generation of small profile transmitters, only tested them in the shops.
I do have X Pro transmitters(1 X Pro II) for each of my 3 Canon cameras and 1 Fuji camera. When set up for a shoot I can switch to a different camera, turn off the camera and transmitter that was being used, and then switch on the other camera and transmitter, even if it's the other brand, and continue the shoot. On powering up, the transmitters set themselves up to pick up the settings already on the lights, so changing the camera and transmitter is seamless, as far as the lighting and light controls are concerned. The camera settings do need to be manually set to the same as the other camera though.
A selection in the menu of the X Pro transmitters lets you choose to control only five groups, or all 16 and when set for 16, up and down arrows appear on the bottom of the screen over two buttons so you can scroll the displayed five groups up and down to see the rest and adjust them. There is a transmitter range selection in the menu as well, and I have always used the 300' range, but there is a short range of 30' available too, as some close transmitter and light distances have had problems communicating, but I have never experienced this in 6 years of use. It's always been set for 300' in my 5 transmitters.
Charley
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