Yesterday I received my set of one transmitter and two receivers from
Alien Bees. They are the CST transmitter and the CSRB receivers or
first and next to last items on this page:
<http://www.shootsmarter.com/content/view/151/>
These are the basic units that do triggering only. The more
sophisticated stuff can do a lot of fancy things like varying power
output, triggering in groups, etc. I decided I didn't really need that
stuff since I have the wired remote that is able to vary power level on
each light but I never use it. But, if I was still shooting events in
large halls with lights 13 feet in the air then I'd probably go for
remote power control for ease of lighting setup.
When I was shooting at important events in the past I always had access
to borrowed Pocket Wizards. They have a long range and can be fired
directly by my Sekonic L-358 flash meter. But they are terribly
expensive. For my own use in portraiture and small groups I've used
ebay slaves without too much trouble. However, they seem to have
deteriorated over several years. They no longer reach the 45 - 125 foot
range they used to (varies dramatically by unit) and, worse, they have
become unreliable even at close range (10-15 feet). Buying a new 16
channel set that appeared to be more advanced didn't help. New out of
the box they were struggling to match the old ones.
Since I have an important shoot coming up on Memorial Day I decided it
was time to get rid of the trouble and buy some Alien Bees triggers.
They are relatively inexpensive (relative to Pocket Wizards), made by a
company I trust but haven't been on the market for very long and don't
have much of a track record yet.
So far I'm quite pleased. They seem quite sturdily built and are very
easy to operate. The transmitter can be put into a hot shoe or else
connected to a PC socket via the included cable. The receivers come
with three cables to connect via either a PC socket, a 3.5mm mono plug
or a 1/4" mono plug. The transmitter has no user operated external
controls other than a channel number selector (0-15) and a test button.
There is no on/off switch. It uses a single CR2450 coin cell lithium
battery which is the largest coin type battery I've ever seen... about
23mm diameter by almost 5mm thick. Battery life quoted is about two
years whether the unit is used or not.
The receivers have a simple, finger-tip opening battery box which holds
two AA cells, either alkaline or NiMH. The external controls are the
(0-15) channel selector and an on/mode button. There is no way for the
user to turn it off other than pulling the batteries. It turns itself
off automatically one hour after receiving the last stimulus. The
stimulus can either be the on button or the last trigger signal received
from the transmitter.
Pressing the button once turns the unit on and it commences a slow
flashing of its small, green LED. Pressing it twice puts it in
"repeater mode" and it commences to perform a triple flash and at a
different rate. Pressing it again takes it out of repeater mode. When
in repeater mode the receiver acts as a receiver/transmitter. It will
fire a flash if one is attached but will also retransmit the signal to
another receiver that is further away. The additional latency is 1/4000
second so, as long as one is using modest, flash compatible shutter
speeds, you'll catch both flashes.
The biggest joy of the whole set is that I don't have to worry about
reliability or range anymore. They are advertised as having range "up
to" 400 feet. I'm not sure what planet that's on. My tests show that,
outside in unobstructed space, one of the receivers stops firing
reliably at about 250 feet. The other is a bit less at about 225 feet.
Either range is longer than anything I've ever needed. Indoors, I
was able to trigger either one reliably from about 55 feet while at the
same time passing through two plaster partition walls and three wood
paneled doors. It finally failed when I moved to 60 feet and added the
third partition wall which also has the glass shower door and porcelain
ceramic tile on one side. I have used lights outside and in rooms
remote from the camera in some architectural shots but these triggers
seem up to any of my past experience. Finally, repeater mode is
available if more range is truly needed.
I'm a happy camper. For $200 I've got all the function I need and which
would have cost me $480 for Pocket Wizards. And they don't have the
Pocket Wizard's Achilles heel which, in my experience, is an unreliable
slide on/off switch which sometimes just stops working.
Dr. Flash
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