QQ&A #1

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.

My favorite way to trigger and control a Speedlite inside an Apollo softbox is to use the extra-long E-TTL cord sold by Flash Zebra. To make this work, you need two pieces of Canon gear: a 40D or newer camera (mid-2007 on) and an EX II Speedlite. The combination of the camera, E-TTL cord and EXII Speedlite enables you to control the Speedlite from the camera’s LCD. When I have multiple-Speedlites inside the Apollo, the one on the cord is the master and the others are slaves. Be sure to have the master enabled (so it will fire during the exposure) with this set-up.  When my master is on-camera, it is disabled, so that it sends the commands to the slaves, but does not fire during the exposure and create crappy on-camera light.

That said, I’m a big fan of RadioPoppers PXs. Any control you can do through a 500-series master will be communicated to slaves without the hassle of a cord. At $250 per unit, it’s a big jump from the $55 E-TTL cord. For instance, if you fired an on-camera master to control three Speedlites inside an Apollo, then you’d have $1000 of RP gear in play to do what the E-TTL cord can do.

RadioPopper has recently released their RPcube for the JrX triggers. This enables you to raise and lower the power to Canon or Nikon Speedlites/Speedlights (the cubes are specific to each brand). The control is not precise—meaning that you cannot go exactly a 2/3-stop. The advantage is that they are relatively inexpensive ($150 for xmtr, rcvr and cube). The JrX will also control the power on an Alien Bee via the RJ45 port (but not the new Einsteins, I understand).

Elinchrom Skyports will enable you to raise and lower the power on Elinchrom Ranger RX and Quadra RX units in 1/10 stop increments. But they won’t do the same for Speedlites.

PocketWizard TT5Flex & TT1Mini

I’ve reading reviews of Pocket wizard’s wireless units and it seems that they don’t work with the 580exII. Is that true?
Bill

The E-TTL radio triggers by PocketWizard, the TT5Flex transceiver and the TT1Mini transmitter, work with the 580EX II. The question is really how far? There is an issue with the electromagnetic pulse emitted by the flash tube that limits the range of the PW signal. The challenge is an American phenomenon. I understand that in Europe PW uses a different frequency so there is no problem. Governments divide up the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves) differently. So it’s not within PW’s ability to simply switch to a different frequency in the US. Also, PW has said that they remain committed to making their E-TTL triggers fully compatible with their installed base of manual radio triggers. Canon Speedlites meet our FCC regs. And there are many other triggers, including PW’s Plus II and MultiMax, that are not affected. So, I’m not really interested in finger-pointing.

PW continues to release new firmware updates and to provide other solutions that increase the range. I think PW is a great company and know that they will continue to improve the reliability and range of their gear. Personally though, I hate the idea of stretching a chain mail sock (the AC5) around my Speedlite. So, for the meantime, I still prefer convenience and simplicity of the RadioPopper PX system. That said, there are loads of success stories on the PocketWizard blog. Read it here.

High-Speed Sync Basics

I own a Canon 5D MK II, and 580EX, 580EXII and some PocketWizards. I have read on the net that my 5D has a max sync speed of 1/200th of a sec but my understanding of high speed sync would be to allow for the camera / flash to fire at a shutter speed much higher than this. Canon’s manual is useless so some info on what and how to do this would be fantastic.
Marnix – South Africa

Wow…thanks for writing from South Africa. So great to see the FIFA World Cup being played there. I love soccer/football almost as much as I love high-speed sync. Here are several articles that I’ve written on the subject. These will get you started.

Flashing At High Noon… or Simple Truths About High-Speed Sync

Dimming The Sun With High-Speed Sync – Part One

Dimming The Sun With High-Speed Sync – Part Two