Review: FlashWaves Radio Flash Trigger – after 7 months

[Genes Pentax]

One of the other members here encouraged me to post my current thoughts on this product here on this forum. So, here it is.

I’ve been using FlashWaves (aka Flashwave or g9chon trigger) since January this year, i.e., 7 months. From what I hear, it was introduced in Korea late last year. They are available from G9Chon - Serving Photographers Worldwide!.

Bottom line: I recommend it wholeheartedly for 99% of users.

To whom it is NOT recommended: If you are one of those rare individuals who like to light up a very large object from the other side of a football field for some reason, I do not recommend Flashwaves.


Here are the pros and cons.

Pros:
1. Built in hot shoe on the receiver + 1/4" common tripod mounting thread on the bottom for easy mounting on a light stand/tripod.
2. Reliable
3. Small
4. Common non-proprietary power source, i.e., AAA batteries.
5. Includes cables you may need (if you decide not to use the flash on the built-in hot shoe for some reason.)
6. Can trigger 3 flashes with one receiver. You can trigger flash using the built-in hot shoe, the pc sync port, or the 3.5mm port, or all three at the same time.

7. Can be used to trigger a camera, i.e., use it as a wireless shutter release. The only limitation with this mode is that it will not activate the AF function of the camera. (But then which flash tirgger does?)
8. Can be used as a quick flash stand also (when necessary). See the picture below.

9. Can sync up to 1/1250s with cameras with electronic shutters, e.g., Nikon D40. For cameras with mechanical shutters, it can sync up to 1/250s, e.g., with Canon 40D. With Pentax, the camera limits max sync speed to 1/180s. So, this is not much of an issue. Picture below is Pentax 540 flash with Canon 40D at 1/250s.

10. With an extra transmitter + receiver, can use it as a repeater to extend the range.
11. The transmitter can be easily modified to add an antenna. Adding an antenna on the transmitter extended the range to well over 120 yards (360+ feet)! Took me only 15 minutes to actually add an antenna.
12. Also, it's got 10 channels.

Cons:
1. Transmitter uses 23A battery. Would've been great if it also used a AAA battery. But this would be a very minor gripe. 23A battery is cheap and easy to find. Just go to your local grocery store (in the U.S.)
2. Max range is about 50 yards. According to my test at a high school football field, the max was 40~45 yards. For 100% reliability, I had to be within 35 yards. Beyond that, I started getting some misfires.
3. Transmitter does not have an antenna. (This is related to #2 and 11 above.)

Othe competing products. (Not in any particular order.)
1. Pocket Wizard.
Pro: the gold standard of all. Longest range or 1600' (but don't think anyone really tested it and verified it).
Con: Very very expensive and BIG.
2. Skyports.
Pro: Long range. 300+ feet (or over 100 yards) according to the manufacturer. Good price.
Con: Uses proprietary battery.
3. Radio Popper.
Pro: Only trigger that can do TTL + long range.
Con: Very expensive. May not work with Pentax.
4. Pulsars.
Pro: good range. 300+ feet.
Con: From what I read, it has a habit of firing more than once with one pull. Also, not cheap.
5. Microsync.
Pro. Simple and small. (Smallest of them all.)
Con: short range + battery difficult to replace on the transmitter.
6. Cybersync.
Pro: Price, small size, and long range.
Con: Unknown quality. But presumably pretty good. Compared to Flashwaves, it doesn't have a built-in hot shoe.
7. Cactus (aka E-Bay trigger, Poverty Wizard, Chinese made cheap stuff, etc.)
Pro: Dirt cheap.
Con: You get what you pay for.

MY EXPERIENCE
Before using Flashwaves, I've used at least two different versions of Cactus triggers and then Microsync.

CONCLUSION
When I switched to Flashwaves from Microsync, the only ones that were unavailable are Cybersync and Radio Popper. But Radio Popper is just as expensive, if not more so, than Pocket Wizard. So, that's out of the question. Cybersync with it's attractive pricing may have been my choice, if it was available. But I'm sure glad I got Flashwaves with its built-in hot shoe. The built-in hot shoe makes it sooooo easy to set up. When I was using Microsync and was trying to set up the lights for a family portrait, my wife used to ask me "why do you have those things dangling from the light?" Also, as for the cost, after buying the wires and hot shoe adapters, the cost of Microsync wasn't much of a bargain. I came to the same conclusion when I considered Skyports. At the time I chose to Flashwaves, I was hesitating between Flashwaves and Skyports. But after adding up the cost, Flashwaves won out easily. Nonetheless, looking back, even if the cost of use were the same, I think Flashwaves would have been a good choice.

Below are some more detailed pictures of the latest version of Flashwaves. The one pictured above with longer antenna is an older version.

Questions or comments are welcome.

Gene

[mariukas]

hey,

thanks for review!

how is it possible to use receiver as a repeater?

[Tom M]

Thanks a bunch for that. Sold! The hot shoe adapter built in is a winner!

[Genes Pentax]

Originally Posted by mariukas

hey,

thanks for review!

how is it possible to use receiver as a repeater?

I had to make a small correction. You need extra transmitter and a receiver to use as a repeater.

Basically, what you do is mount one transmitter (TX #1) on your camera on channel X, then mount another transmitter (TX #2) on a receiver that's to be used as a repeater. The channel on TX #2 should be channel Y. Then, the receiver on the flash should be on channel Y. The receiver being used as a repeater should be on channel X. So, TX #1 triggers the repeater receiver which in turn triggers TX #2. TX #2 then triggers the final receiver.

I tried it in my house and it works quite fine. Now, I haven't tried this in outdoors yet to test the max range doing this. But I suspect that it should work just fine also. If one of you have tried this, please let me know.

Hope this helps.

Gene

[Mattp9]

Excellent review. Thank you for answering my questions on the Flashwaves and posting. - Matt

[davef]

Thanks Gene. I appreciate the review and the time to post it. word-of-mouth still tends to be one of the best references available. Dave

[bigben91682]

Nice review Gene, It's certainly useful for me as I'm still deliberating which radio triggers to buy. I'm torn between these, the Skyports, and the CyberSyncs....I think Peter Zack uses these as well and likes them...I think it was peter....

[Genes Pentax]

Originally Posted by bigben91682

Nice review Gene, It's certainly useful for me as I'm still deliberating which radio triggers to buy. I'm torn between these, the Skyports, and the CyberSyncs....I think Peter Zack uses these as well and likes them...I think it was peter....

Thanks. Glad you found it helpful.

It would be great if someone could post a detailed review of CyberSyncs also. That's definitely one model (right now) that I might have bought rather than Flashwaves.

Skyport's proprietary battery was a big turn off ... one of the reasons I kept searching for an alternative until I found Flashwaves.

Between Skyports and Cybersyncs, I really don't see ANY advantage of Skyports, if Cybersyncs perform to the specs. Price is definitely very attractive on Cybersyncs. The big questions are (1) Is the range so important as to give up the built-in hot shoe? and (2) is the built-in hot shoe worth the extra cost? Personally, as for question #1, the range wasn't very important for me, and as for #2, I think it was.

I guess the only other very compelling choice would be the yet-to-exist Radio Popper Junior. I read on another forum just yesterday that Radio Popper Jr. might come out with a built-in hot shoe.

Gene

[bigben91682]

Yeah the popper Jr. is certainly appealing as well. I'm very tempted by the CyberSync, both because of the low price and the past experience I've had with AlienBees - to sum it up they are an awesome company. I like the idea of having service and support in the same country that I'm in.

I can get 1 transmitter and 2 recievers from AlienBees for the price of a 1&1 from Flashwaves or Skyports.

The one advantage I could see from the Skyports would be the group feature. If you are shooting a wedding reception, you can select which lights to fire, or select all of them. That's appealing to me, but not a deal-maker....

[Peter Zack]

Hey Gene, I bought the Flashwaves as you know since you directed me to their site for extra receivers. I appreciate the earlier advice and couldn't be happier with these. I posted a review here Fot those that are considering flash triggers. awhile back. Since then I've done at least 6 more events and these have not let me down. I didn't try the remote camera trigger. I guess you just plug the receiver into the camera's remote jack and fire the transmitter manually.

I would estimate that I've shot 3500-4000 images with them since the spring and not one misfire. Very good tech support as well. As you said the box contents save a bit of hassle tracking down parts and $$. Plus the distributor will sell extras as well even though they are not listed on the web site. G9Chon - FlashWaves

Had I realized that, I would have ordered a few extra cables (spares) and some of the plastic shoe mounts that have the tripod screw. Highly recommended product!

[BrendanPK]

THe PW actualy have been tested to over 3/4mi by some. Now Firing is not 100% and you have to be line of sight.
However I will tell you that my PW and others have no problem hitting 1000' or so and have set up in massive buildings w/ interference before too no prob unless low batt.
I want to try the radiopopper, they should work w/ Pentax.
These slaves you tested are very cool for the average guy and best of all they are not on the PW channels so you dont have to do the channel dance when at games etc.

[Russell-Evans]

Originally Posted by bigben91682

The one advantage I could see from the Skyports would be the group feature. If you are shooting a wedding reception, you can select which lights to fire, or select all of them. That's appealing to me, but not a deal-maker....

I think one way to do this with any other system would be to throw more hardware at it. I think you can use a receiver to trigger a transmitter to create a relay on all the systems, so splitting the RF channels between flash groups seems possible.

For example, if you had five receivers, and two transmitters, you could have two pairs of receivers, two groups, each pair set up on a different channel, and one receiver hooked up to the other transmitter to create the relay.

On the camera transmitter, just changing channels would get you one pair or the other firing. To have them all fire, you would need to have the relay receiver listen to the channel the camera transmitter uses, the camera transmitter triggers one pair of flashes, and have the relay transmitter set to use the other channel, triggering the other pair. When the relay isn't needed just change the relay receiver to listen on a unused channel. I think even the Cactus V2 have four channels to work with.

Anyone ever tried this?

Thank you
Russell

[Genes Pentax]

Originally Posted by BrendanPK

THe PW actualy have been tested to over 3/4mi by some. Now Firing is not 100% and you have to be line of sight.
However I will tell you that my PW and others have no problem hitting 1000' or so and have set up in massive buildings w/ interference before too no prob unless low batt.
I want to try the radiopopper, they should work w/ Pentax.
These slaves you tested are very cool for the average guy and best of all they are not on the PW channels so you dont have to do the channel dance when at games etc.

If it is misfiring at those distances, then the claimed long range isn't very valuable ... especially at $360+ for a set of a transmitter and a receiver. Also, I wonder about those claiming 1000' of range. That's well over 300 yards ... where do you actually go test those distances? At an airstrip? How did you measure the 1000' of distance? And those claiming to have tested over 3/4mi? I do wonder about their credibility given not only 3/4mi (= 0.75mi) is well beyond the range claimed by Pocket Wizard (1600' = 0.3 mi) but again, where did that person test it and how did that person measure such a distance? At that distance, would that person even be able to see the flash light?

Pocket Wizard claim's 1600' of range. If it is successfully triggering at 1000', that's success at 62% of the claimed range. Flashwaves triggers at 120' and the claimed range is about 150'. So, that's success at 80% of the claimed distance, which is not too bad.

Anyhow, for an average guy who shoots portraits within a shouting distance, getting PW seems rather like buying an F1 race car for the purposes of commuting to an office 2 blocks away.

[Peter Zack]

Gene, this "average guy" would agree. I couldn't ever foresee needing more range than the FW's provide and I got 3 receivers and a transmitter for the price of one PW Trans and one Rec. Easy choice IMO.