Sorry, I don't know anything about radio control of TTL flash. Nikon
and Canon offer "wireless" control of multiple TTL capable flash units
and the ability to control the lighting ratios between them but I think
the control is infrared and not radio. But I could be wrong. I just
don't pay much attention to that high priced stuff.
Apart from my four Alien Bee B800's ($279 each) I'm the epitome of cheap
when it comes to flash and flash control. What allows you to do that is
a flash meter. I use a Sekonic L-358. I haven't made a single TTL shot
since I got the flash meter. For that matter I use the incident mode in
the meter for most of my natural light stuff as well. The camera's
meter rarely gets used. As I commented the other day I have a Canon 5D
which has a spot meter. I've owned the camera since early summer and
the spot meter has never been turned on.
I do sometimes use on-camera flash units in normal auto mode when
shooting digital. I like to use two flashes with one in the hot shoe
and the other on a bracket. You can put both flashes in auto mode, do a
test shot and then adjust the ISO levels on each flash unit individually
to control the output. I use the hotshoe flash to illuminate the
subject and the bracket mounted flash to illiminate the room.
When shooting events such as this night time wedding reception in a tent
<http://www.chucknorcutt.com/party.php> I use two to four of the studio
lights as "room lights". I try to set up the lights to provide (as
closely as I can) an overall background illimination of f/5.6 at ISO
400. I then set my camera mounted flash on a bracket and set it
manually for a good f/8 manual exposure at a particular distance
considering also the extra light from the room lights. The idea is to
properly expose the important foreground subject at about f/8 and leave
the background at f/5.6 so that it recedes in brightness but doesn't
look like the inside of a dark tunnel. In addition I tend to use a long
shutter speed in order to pick up the incandescent lights in the room.
The party shot was taken at 1/4 second and you can see some subject
motion if you look closely at, for example, finger tips. At much less
than 1/4 second the lights lining the inside of the tent would have
disappeared since they're much less bright than the flash.
Anyhow, back to the radio slaves. I have four of these units
<http://cgi.ebay.com/Wireless-Radio-Slave-Flashlight-4-Channel-battery_W0QQitemZ280020917577QQihZ018QQcategoryZ30086QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting>
with two of them from this exact seller whom I can recommend. Just
don't expect the claims of 30 meters range to prove true. The range of
my 4 units varies from about 15 meters to about 40 meters. If you
expect 15 and get 20 then be happy. I need remote triggering in the
party room since I couldn't possibly have cable strung between camera
and lights. If the room is small enough for the range of my cheap
devices I'll put a radio receiver on each light. If the room is too big
I'll use one or two receivers on the lights near the dance floor and
then count on those lights to trigger the other ones optically. The
Alien Bees have an optical trigger built in which functions autmatically
if no electrical trigger is plugged in. Lights triggered optically will
be set off by party goers P&S cameras so ocassionally you'll miss a
shot. However, the Bees recycle from a full dump in about 3/4 second so
they're ususally ready to go at all times. Besides, they're normally
not running at full power so actual recyling times are even quicker.
When using these simple radio slaves they are acting no differently than
a PC cable. There is only a simple triggering signal. That's it.
Period. There is no more. There's nothing mysterious. They're just a
long PC cable with no wire between the two ends :-)
I recently bought one of these 16 channel units from this seller
<http://cgi.ebay.com/Digital-Radio-Slave-Flash-Trigger-16-Channel-Wireless_W0QQitemZ140021097358QQihZ004QQcategoryZ30086QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem>
but have been sorely disappointed so far. I bought it for the claim of
50 meters range plus having a PC connection on the back to trigger
portable flash units without needing some sort of adapter. The range
has tested out so poorly and the operation is so erratic that I think I
may have a defective unit. I need to do a little more testing to verify
that my flash unit is not at fault and then contact the seller. For the
moment this unit is not recommended by Chuck.
The 4 channel slaves come standard with a 1/4" mono plug which is common
on some studio flashes. They also include a 1/4" to miniplug adapter
which is what's used on the Bees. Since they don't have a PC socket for
triggering a portable flash I plug the miniplug adapter into a
female/female miniplug coupler from Radio Shack and then attach a PC
cable with male miniplug on the other end and plug that end into the
coupler. Finding all the right cables and adapters to go on a shoot can
sometimes be a problem. The cables and adapters tend to get scattered
around between about 8 different camera/equipment bags.
Hope this helps.
Chuck Norcutt
usher99@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Chuck, Always like your elegant, economical lighting solutions and
> the results. Haven't tried a radio slave as yet and don't like the
> line of sight limitation of the optical triggers in many
> applications. Wonder if you could spell out how to set up the radio
> slave for TTL or non TTL auto use for a radio slave Newbie. I
> haven't required them often, though would be nice to have the option
> for not too much dinero. Mike
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