Welcome to Quick Questions & Answers #1

As I wrote recently (here), I’ve been buried for the past couple of months with my US seminar tour and the completion of the ‘Speedliter’s Handbook.’ Along the way, I’ve tried to answer the many questions that were emailed in directly. In an effort to share the knowlege, I’ve decided to start Quick Questions & Answers. These are not going to be well-polished thoughts or well-edited text. In fact, they will be more like stream-of-consciousness ramblings.

To submit your question, please email it (along with your name and city/country) to

I won’t be able to answer every question. I will try to answer the most interesting ones.

Radio Triggers and Manual Control

Just wondering: is there a particular combo of a radio trigger and a speedlite (off-brand, Canon, Nikon, whatever) that would allow me to set manual power levels from the camera (either using the trigger’s transmitter or through some other means). It’s a bit of a pain to hobble over to each speedlite to change power levels, especially when one of them is stuck in an Apollo softbox. I know you can probably do this with either the Radiopopper PZx or the PW ControlTL setups; any other options? I mean, what if you threw a studio strobe into the fray?
Thanks, Sohail – San Francsico

You have manual wireless control built into the Canon system. Switch the Master to Manual and the slaves will follow suit. This enables you to control each group A-B-C individually. It’s best to do this via the LCD on your camera.

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