The phone adaptor on top of the strobe was the problem. The $5 connector was the solution. I prefer shorter cables, but 6' was the shortest they had. I'm sure a 3' should not be that difficult to find.
Just my luck! I'm slow getting back to the thread and missed all this helpful advice!
Ironically, I picked up one of those radio shack cables to use with the PW's, since they don't come with cables & adapters. But I returned the skyports just before I did that... PW's aren't here yet so I haven't tried them.
Grrr...
Maybe I'll buy some more skyports and see whether they work with the RS cable.
When I was testing them, though, I did replace the adapter that came with the skyports with one that came with my cheap ebay triggers. The skyports still didn't work, even though the cheap ebay triggers do work using the same adapter. So it could be a combination of things that includes the use of an adapter with the skyports...
Wish I'd read this before shipped the skyports back...
I was just re-reading these posts, and something you said earlier struck me... You said the new RS cable meant that your PW II's now worked with the Stellar lights. Does that mean that they didn't work via an adapter, or just that you never used the 2 together until you had the cable?
Just want to make sure that I'm not spending too much on PW's only to find they don't work either...
Don't worry. They'll work. The Interfit problem appears to be a connectivity issue with the 1/4" phone adaptor that came with the Skyport.
We have both PW's and Skyports. As far as their connectivity, they work the same.
The only difference is that Skyports provide additional connectors with their units at no extra charge. The PW's only come with the miniphone connectors, you have to buy the extra cables separate. When tested, neither remote system worked with Interfits using the bonus phone adaptor provided by Skyport, but they both worked with a straight 1/4" phone to 1/8" mini connector (mono).
Our PW's don't get used so much anymore since we got the Skyports, but t has nothing to do with quality or reliability. Both are excellent products, both have their advantages. I still use the PW's occasionally as a camera trigger, but in the studio, I prefer the Skyports. Bear in mind, we do not use a PW ready light meter either. Aside from the much, much smaller size and ease of sliding on an off the camera, we find the ALL/GROUP functionality to be the biggest Skyport advantage. We mainly bought the Skyport originally for our RX units (very cool), but quickly added the Universals for the simple ability to trigger and meter each strobe (including the non-RX strobes, like the Interfit) on individual Groups and fire ALL to get the composite shot.
The phone adaptor on top of the strobe was the problem. The $5 connector was the solution. I prefer shorter cables, but 6' was the shortest they had. I'm sure a 3' should not be that difficult to find.
Has anybody experience with these units at higher shutter speeds ?
My old cactus cheapo's went up to 1/200, but i really need reliable flash
now, at least up to 1/800th. (and I'm on a budget ;-)
@Franck,
It's very likely you won't find any wireless sync unit that supports high speed sync. Canon does high speed sync by pulsing the flash to produce an effective higher shutter speed. But studio strobes can't be made to do that.
If you are using your cactus with studio strobes, that 1/200th is as fast as you're gonna go, regardless. It's about your camera, not the strobe, or the wireless trigger. The shutter curtain isn't open completely at any speed above 1/200.
Im still trying to figure out what works and what does not (and why) when using flash. A whole new area for me in photography :-/ As you stated chas, there is only a full exposed sensor up till 1/200th. What I dont understand is that some people on the net state that they can go single "flash" up to 1/800th. That would mean i'd need a camera that will fully expose it sensor in that short time? (or I should flash multiple times during that exposure). I have a 30D and 400D btw.
I'd like to use fill flash in sports, meaning i would like to have fill light at 1/300 till 1/500th shutter speeds.
Franck wrote:
I'd like to use fill flash in sports, meaning i would like to have fill light at 1/300 till 1/500th shutter speeds.
Cameras that don't rely on the shutter itself to determine exposure--such as the CCD-based original 1D--as well as cameras that have their shutters in the lenses can do this.
I think that you don't understand that when you use strobes, the camera shutter speed doesn't have to be fast to stop motion. You use the brief duration of the strobe to freeze the motion. There are lots of discussions of this issue here and on the sports forum.
Worse comes to worse buy the PWs on your credit card and get no interest for 60 days if you time it right. Use buy it now and get 90 days interest free.
cocheuk wrote:
Does anyone know if I can use a single receiver with a miniphone splitter to trigger two 580ex flashes?
You can do this with PWs I think.
Yep. Can't confirm for the Skyports, but there's no reason it shouldn't work that I can think of off-hand.
You are limited in the number of splits by the current of the trigger's sync pulse. Pocket Wizards will do 4 flashes no problem (and I've seen some people say they've used 6).
horstenj wrote:
I can imagine what you say, especially in the studio. For my question I had a shoot on location in mind, using a fair set of smaller strobes distributed over the space, such my set of Vivitars 285HV (that apparently cannot be triggered by the current Skyport units, I have read in this thread that other versions are coming).. For studio use I have set of non-Elinchroms, so both multimaxes and Skyports will do equally well I assume).
