Slave/ wireless flashes

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i dont even own a flash yet, but am trying to figure out what i need.  here is a good website to get you going in the right direction.  
http://strobist.blogspot.com/

k so im looking at the pocketwizard multimax transciever, and i realise it can be a transmitter or a reciever, but im not understandning how it fires the flash, do you need one for your camera, and one for the flash or whats the deal here...

i believe how it works is a transmitter goes on your hot shoe on your camera and a receiver goes on the bottom of your flash. a signal is transmitted from your camera to the flash.  

good thread, i need to learn up on this for nightime shooting, lighting would help so much

I use Pocket wizard Plus II's.

They are amazing and I highly recommend them to anybody who want to go wireless.  Essentially you need at least 2 of them. The Plus II's and the multimax's can go both ways (trans, receive).  You put on on the hotshoe of your camera and then one hooks into your flash. How it hooks into your flash differs from flash to flash. Here is a link to the various flash cables you can use to connect the PW to the flash http://www.pocketwizard.com/HTML/cables2.asp.  I don't recommend using canon flash units since they don't have a good way to connect them to the PW.  I made a miniphone to hotshoe connection for a 430ex I was using.  You don't need the fancy flash unit anyways since when you use a radio wireless trigger, you loose a lot of the auto features that the spendy units offer. 

You can also use the PW to trigger your camera AND your flash units from a remote source. Example of how I used that feature.  I dug my camera into the snow at the end of a rail with 1 flash unit to the right and behind where the skier was going to be (for backlight). I had another flash unit to the left set up to provide fill flash to illuminate the face and front area.    I got out of the way and just hit the remote when the skier was in the perfect spot.

You can find knock offs on ebay, but they are not as consistant and the range of the signal isn't nearly as good.

~Ben

I have been asked this a couple times now via messages, so I thought I'd share it in here as well.


For Pocket wizards, I use pretty old school flash by Sunpak call the 383 super.  Its a pretty basic flash and is really cheap at 80 bucks a unit.  I see them being sold used for around 30-50 dollars.  Link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/52799-REG/Sunpak_0383_383_Super_Auto_Flash.html 

My reasons for getting them:
- Powerfull
- Cheap
- Durable for the price point
- swivel head allows for creative flash bouncing
- Easily attaches to PW via the "sunpak" type port. This is better then rigging something up that goes through the flash hotshoe.
- Will accept external battery packs for faster recycling time.

I do not use these for everyday flash use though. I like the canon 580ex and 430ex much better for that. 

see the thing is i want a flash for regualr use too, so it would make more sense to buy one, until my ass gets some work

Whats your camera system? whats your budget?

call them strobes. its more baller

canon 30d, battery grip, sigma 18-50 dc ex 2.8, sigma 70-200 dg ex 2.8 im looking at about 700 total, maybe abit more, but preferably not. right now im looking at the speedlite 430 , and two pocketwizard plus

yes pocket wizards are the shit!  But get real strobes

alien bees

i use a canon eos 30d two speedlite 550ex and three multimax pocket wizzards to fire them and they are awesome the range is amazing

Alien bees are heavy for doing location shots.  Plus you need to be close to a powersource so you can plug them in.  Just not practical for sports shooting.

just gona put this out there....

im a poor college student and couldnt afford the nikon remotes, so i looked round a bit and found the cactus wireless flash trigger V2.  Theyre about $40 shipped to the US, and they work well.  I use mine for skiing, and it flashes aout %98 of the time, so if you need everysingle shot you take, go with the more expensive one.  But i love it, cheap, durable (so far), and it works well. 

I got mine here
http://www.gadgetinfinity.com/product.php?productid=16766&cat=0&page=

more info about it here
http://l7foto.com/2007/05/20/gadget-infinity-v2-wireless-flash-trigger/

No they work pretty good a friend of mine uses them they maybe be heavy with the power packs and such but they are so much more versital than just Canon 580ex's and such.(that is what i have) The shot he got vs my two canon flashes were very noticeable. For urban and jumps (sunset/ low light) they are very nice.