Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: idenford on February 25, 2007, 12:49:37 pm
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I have been reading the "strobist" website and I went out and got a clamp for my sb800 so I can shoot off camera. I have an alien Bees strobe as well (ring flash that works as a strtobe with the moon unit). Do I need the pocket wizard to fire both flashes? I have a cheap version of it which I paid $40 for, and which is wireless but is a transitter and a receiver, two pieces. If I plug that in to my sb800, I am pretty sure the alien bees strobe will fire simultaneously. But someone at a camera store today told me that I would need two sb800's to get one of them to fire wirelessly.
So I guess my question is should I invest in a pocket wizard, or are the less expensive wireless transmitters and recievers okay for all this? As I understand it the pocket wizard is a transceiver, does not need a receiver. Not sure how that works, anybody know? thanks.
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The strobist flickr group is your friend for all off camera lighting. (Well, the stuff not answered at the strobist blog.)
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I have been reading the "strobist" website and I went out and got a clamp for my sb800 so I can shoot off camera. I have an alien Bees strobe as well (ring flash that works as a strtobe with the moon unit). Do I need the pocket wizard to fire both flashes? I have a cheap version of it which I paid $40 for, and which is wireless but is a transitter and a receiver, two pieces. If I plug that in to my sb800, I am pretty sure the alien bees strobe will fire simultaneously. But someone at a camera store today told me that I would need two sb800's to get one of them to fire wirelessly.
So I guess my question is should I invest in a pocket wizard, or are the less expensive wireless transmitters and recievers okay for all this? As I understand it the pocket wizard is a transceiver, does not need a receiver. Not sure how that works, anybody know? thanks.
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Pocket Wizards come in several models; unless this has changed there is one series with separate transmitters and receivers, and another series of transceivers with one unit capable of doing it all. The latter are more expensive but more versatile. If you are at all serious about reliability and function I'd not bother with the cheap eBay alternatives--just buy the PW's and be done with it.
The alien bees have a built in optical slave, so at short range and under the right conditions you can trigger the AB with the SB800 which you've triggered with the PW. You can operate the SB800 via a PW trigger in manual mode only, as far as I know. You will need either a capable nikon camera, another SB800, or the commander unit in order to control the SB800 remotely using Nikon's CLS.
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The alien bees have a built in optical slave, so at short range and under the right conditions you can trigger the AB with the SB800 which you've triggered with the PW. [/quote]
i would add however that if you use the optical slave, and you are shooting at a wedding, every time uncle ted or aunt martha fire off their point and shoot, your strobe will go off. it may then not be charged for your shot depending on the situation. you didn't mention your application, so i thought i would chime in. radio slaves are safer for events in that respect.
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I bought the pocket wizards, may buy a third one, but at the mo gonna use my pocket wizard to trigger the SB800 and hope the optical slaves on the alien bees work well. I know about the problem re firing when others are shooting. Not much you can do about that I suppose.