Action Sports Cartel

Hey, I have quantum RS 4 and 4i currently. I have used them for years without problems until recently they started acting nutty on me. They fire by themselves, dont fire when I shoot, often get blank frames, and are not in sync. I refuse to give quantum 160 bucks to fix them. (which i STILL might have to do)

When I called them, i told them i use them i rough enviroments and in high school gyms with alot of metal. They told me that they are prone to problems when they are six inches from steel, concrete, or brick. So that makes it a pain when i have to clamp flashes on I beams...
Now having said that- Do pocket wizards have the same deal with interference and all? I am considering going that route if they are that much more reliable. I am tired of missing shots with these.

Thanks,
-Matt

Hey Matt,

The pocket wizards are well known for being shielded and just flat out working but they are expensive but they will do exactly what you want them to do.

Take a look at the Radio Poppers system before you leap to Pocket wizards. I am using my Radio Poppers JrX units for the first time today. I have been using FlashWaves but they were asking very much like your system is now.

www.radiopopper.com/ Much cheaper than Pocket Wizards!

I just finished up a press conference where they worked flawless! No miss fires and no flashes going off on their own.

Tonight I follow up with 2 volleyball games in a university gym where I always had problems with my old units.

I will report back how they work!

If you have Alienbees strobes the JrX Studio version will allow you to adjust the power of the strobes right from the camera. A very nice bonus feature.

I am using the system with my hot shoe flashes right now.

Kelly

i will check those out. I looked at skyports yesterday, but those didnt really appeal to me. That, and I have never heard anything about them.

hey matt,

i use skyports and I think theyre great. you can find a lot of stuff on the on fredmiranda.com forums. i even bought a set of pw's to compare and ended up getting rid o fthem and keeping the skyports

pros

- price
- size
- if you want wireless metering, you dont need to have a specific sekonic meter + pw module, all you need is a $30 pc sync to connect your transmitter to any meter and you got it.
- different channels + groups which means you can fire individual flashes for individual readings and then all of them together for overall reading, all that at a distance.
- chargers instead of AA batteries.

cons

- less distance than pw's (~100m as opposed to what, 300?)
- plastic built (but so are the pw's, didnt feel any more comfortable wth pw's)
- some buttons are small
- dont know when the receivers need chargin until its too late, but it never ruined a shoot for me.
- harder to find than pw's

so maybe that's something to think about, ive heard so much about radiopoppers too, if i didnt already have the skyports i'd probably check them out before pw's/

I will give them another look. Do they suffer from any sort of interference from metal, concrete, or PA systems?


Right now the only thing that kinda sucks, is before I sell the Quantums, I will probably have to send them out to be re-tuned. thats 160 off the bat since i have two pairs.

pocket wizards add an inch where it counts

havent had any experience with interference against concrete or metal with skyports. with pocketwizards ive personally experienced misfiring at a skatepark surrounded by concrete and my friend who owned them at the time said he had that problem too, but im not trashing pw's, there's always a possibility that it was a defect on those pw's in particular. has no one ever had to deal with that on their pw's?

bottom line matt, no device is perfect. you win some, you lose some.

Hey Matt,

on the weekend I shot 4 University Volleyball games and 1 press conference with my new Radio Poppers JrX units and they were flawless! No problem at all, I was able to use the my flashes no matter where I was in the gym!

My biggest issue with my flashwaves was having my flash fire repeatedly out of the blue when I have my high voltage battery packs attached. Concerned I am going to cook a flash. I do know my flashes have a built in heat protection system to shut the system down when it gets hot but I don't want to get the flash that hot in the first place.

The Radio Poppers came with several cords to attach to studio strobes for manual or if you have Alienbees it can attach to those strobes giving you the ability to adjust the power of the studio strobes from your camera.

If you are interested, the guys at Tri-Coast photography did a review of the Radio Poppers PX and the new Pocket Wizards. ITs all on You Tube. www.youtube.com/user/TriCoastPhoto#p/c/2...67854C/0/pJbEsC27Quk

Take note the Pocket Wizards have had several firmware updates but I don't think they have come out with the Nikon version at this time.

I really don't like how you have to attach the Pocket Wizards to a computer to change the settings!

I hope this helps.

Kelly