[philbaum]

UPDATE:
THANKS TO ONE OLD MOD AND ONE NEW MOD, MY CACTUS TRIGGER IS NOW WORKING WELL - SEE LAST POST.
==========================
Old post:
Some stuff i've learned along the way:
1. When Pentax literature talks about wireless, they are talking about a flash optical signal to trigger the remote flash. That has nothing to do with the "radio" wireless flashes such as the Cactus made by Gadget Infinity, ebay store.

2. To activate the Cactus Transmitter, its slid into place on the hotshoe, and the camera is placed in the "manual" mode, flash is selected from the FN menu, not "wireless flash (if i'm wrong on this, pls tell me). The Receiver is attached to the base of the flash.

3. The Cactus Version 2 triggers have 4 possible radio channels. When i first tried the trigger, the flash was being activated every 10 seconds or so without any shutter action. Changing to a channel with less interference solved this problem, as recommended by the instructions.

4. The manual says these triggers only work up to a maximum of 10 meters or 30 feet. Trying them tonight, they worked at 45 feet w/o anything interferring with the signal.

5. There have been times the past few 2 days when the radio triggers just didn't work every time. Didn't get to the cause of these problems. Commonly, my Metz Flash would timeout after 10 minutes and i had to go reactivate it again. It can't be set any higher than 10 minutes. I was playing around with different shutter speeds and apertures, and i'm wondering if some of this caused a problem with the flash. In some cases i saw the flash go off and it didn't show up in the picture. Perhaps the shutter was not at an acceptable synch speed to catch the flash. Or perhaps some radio interference caused the occasional malfunction.

Anyway, these radio triggers are reliable enough to satisfy the casual user like myself. Please note if you have any tips on them, including using on multiple flashes.

thanks,

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Last edited by philbaum; 12-05-2008 at 08:33 PM.

[MPrince]

Here's my tip:

The shoe mount on the receiver is flimsy and unreliable. Remove it. Use the PC connection instead. If your flash doesn't have the necessary connection, buy one of these:

FlashZebra.com: PC to Flash Hotshoe Adapter (Item #0065)

Once you have connected the PC cord to the receiver, do not remove it. Ever. Because the PC connector on the receiver is also flimsy.

You can let the receiver dangle, or slap on a piece of adhesive-backed velcro and attach to your flash. (Your flash does have velcro on it, right? It doesn't? OMG, you're not a strobist!!)

The cactus triggers are a good, inexpensive way to introduce yourself to the joys of off-camera flash, and my set has been sufficiently reliable, but I'm just about ready to upgrade to CyberSyncs.

[MPrince]

2. To activate the Cactus Transmitter, its slid into place on the hotshoe, and the camera is placed in the "manual" mode, flash is selected from the FN menu, not "wireless flash (if i'm wrong on this, pls tell me). The Receiver is attached to the base of the flash.

You are not wrong about this, (AFAIK).

4. The manual says these triggers only work up to a maximum of 10 meters or 30 feet. Trying them tonight, they worked at 45 feet w/o anything interferring with the signal.

I get 30 feet max. Not 30 feet, 1 inch. 30 feet.

5. There have been times the past few 2 days when the radio triggers just didn't work every time. Didn't get to the cause of these problems. Commonly, my Metz Flash would timeout after 10 minutes and i had to go reactivate it again. It can't be set any higher than 10 minutes. I was playing around with different shutter speeds and apertures, and i'm wondering if some of this caused a problem with the flash. In some cases i saw the flash go off and it didn't show up in the picture. Perhaps the shutter was not at an acceptable synch speed to catch the flash. Or perhaps some radio interference caused the occasional malfunction.

If you have a flash that times out, and you can't bypass the timeout, this will be a problem, and it is not related to the cactus trigger (again, AFAIK). You'll have to wake the flash up before the cactus can do its thing.

Also, you generally can't get max sync speed using the cactus. At 1/125, you shouldn't have much if any problem, but you likely won't get 1/180.

[Matjazz]

I modified my transmiter with a simple wire antena. The reach is much bigger.

[BBear]

At 1/125, you shouldn't have much if any problem, but you likely won't get 1/180.

On the Pentax only it seems, which is weird...

I thought this was a Cactus-only issue, but in previous strobist meetings, we all shared cactus and I was the only one at 1/125 while they were shooting at 1/250 & 1/180.

[BBear]

My only tip:


Remember to turn of the receivers after you are done working!

[maxwell1295]

Here's my tip:

The shoe mount on the receiver is flimsy and unreliable. Remove it. Use the PC connection instead. If your flash doesn't have the necessary connection, buy one of these:

FlashZebra.com: PC to Flash Hotshoe Adapter (Item #0065)

Once you have connected the PC cord to the receiver, do not remove it. Ever. Because the PC connector on the receiver is also flimsy.

You can let the receiver dangle, or slap on a piece of adhesive-backed velcro and attach to your flash. (Your flash does have velcro on it, right? It doesn't? OMG, you're not a strobist!!)

The cactus triggers are a good, inexpensive way to introduce yourself to the joys of off-camera flash, and my set has been sufficiently reliable, but I'm just about ready to upgrade to CyberSyncs.

Great post and very eerie to me. Either you've been reading my mind or you're my alter ego....or the identical twin I never knew I had.

I just ordered 2 of those hotshoe adapters last night (without seeing this thread or any reference to them on this forum). I also had to LMAO at the velcro comment. ALL of my flashes have velcro on them....and yes, I am a strobist. What really makes this eerie is that I just told my wife last night that she can get me some Cybersyncs for Christmas.

Uncanny....

The only tip I'd add to what has already been mentioned here is to but new batteries in the minute you get these things in the mail. There's no doubt in my mind that the orginal batteries will die when you ned them most....

[MPrince]

Great post and very eerie to me. Either you've been reading my mind or you're my alter ego....or the identical twin I never knew I had.

I just ordered 2 of those hotshoe adapters last night (without seeing this thread or any reference to them on this forum). I also had to LMAO at the velcro comment. ALL of my flashes have velcro on them....and yes, I am a strobist. What really makes this eerie is that I just told my wife last night that she can get me some Cybersyncs for Christmas.

Uncanny....

The only tip I'd add to what has already been mentioned here is to but new batteries in the minute you get these things in the mail. There's no doubt in my mind that the orginal batteries will die when you ned them most....

[Twilight zone] doo doooo doo doo , doo dooo doo doo, doo dooo doo doo [/twilight zone]

[geauxpez]

Other tips:

-- on the receivers, don't close the battery compartment too tightly -- you will lose contact and it won't work.

-- Instead of velcro (way too high class) I just gaffer-tape the receiver to whatever flash or swivel bracket I'm using and use the PC cord to hook it to the flash. If you use the receiver hotshoes it puts your flashgun in the upper 1/3 or so of your umbrella (if you're using one) and you may get uneven light.

-- be careful with your settings -- I was shooting a couple of days ago, stopped to change my camera battery and when I got it going again, my flashes wouldn't fire -- I had bumped my shutter speed from the 1/60th I was using to 1/250 which won't work at all.

At any rate, have fun...

And have a SERIOUS Christmas...(nope -- she wouldn't smile). Probably sucks to be the child of a photo nut. Strobist info: Lit tree behind subject, SB24 camera left with shoot-through brolly and white posterboard reflector camera right.



Adam

[poco]

You can daisy chain receiver to transmitter to get longer range. With four channels you could have up to four units in a chain for up to 120 feet of range.

The channel switch is on the bottom of the transmitter on the units I have. The transmitter needs to be on a remote cable or connected via a hotsync cable to make this convenient, but by using multiple receivers on different channels you can split your lighting. Two flashes on one channel and two flashes on another channel with one transmitter and switching between channels can give you some more flexibility.

Combining the two methods above you can have a setup that allows you to use a subset or all your flashes per shot. The simple case of two flashes and three receivers and two transmitters: set one receiver to channel one, set the other two receivers to channel two, set one transmitter to channel two and one transmitter to channel one.

Attach the channel one receiver to flash one, attach one of the channel two receivers to the flash two, and finally attach the second channel two receiver to the channel one transmitter. Attach the channel two transmitter to the camera. The channel one receiver attached to the channel one transmitter stays next to the camera also.

Now to use flash two alone, turn off the channel two receiver attached to the channel one transmitter. To have both channel one flash and channel two flash fire, turn on the channel two receiver attached to the channel one transmitter. To have the channel one flash fire alone, change the channel on the transmitter attached to the camera to channel one.

The antenna mod.

If you're not into mods, it probably would help a lot just to have a transmitter up high. The set up would be one transmitter set to channel one, another transmitter set to channel two, with the receivers attached to the flashes set to channel two, the daisy chain receiver set to channel one attached to the channel two transmitter, and finally the channel one transmitter attached to the camera. Attach the daisy chain channel two receiver and channel one transmitter to a tall flash stand and position it to get the maximum coverage. You could also use remote flash cables and a flash bracket to get the transmitter a little further up.

I bought one of these long ago which was a useless waste of $25, except now I use it with the transmitters. It puts it up high enough to see and set the channel settings easily, but low enough to use the cable included with the triggers. I'm using a hot shoe mounted hotsync adapter. I'm not sure if it would be long enough for the K20D sync port. I would say it is, but I'm not 100% sure.

[krypticide]

Pretty interesting concept, chaining the transmitters. Any pictures of the setup, by chance? Lots of similar words used...

[FuzzyOne]

Here are my suggestions.

First and foremost, change the battery as soon as you take delivery of them. Many misfirings can be attributed to the battery. The directions even state that it is for testing only.

Second, make sure the battery is seated properly. I had to bend the contacts on two of my three receivers so the battery made proper contact. After doing so, I didn't have anymore problems.

Third, if you're using the Pentax 360, fire it every 2:59 seconds or it will go into standby. This is a pain and if I knew this before, I probably would have bought another 540.

Finally, put some galfers tape or painters tape over the battery compartment door. I was shooting a couple sisters in the woods and didn't even notice one fell off until one of the girls saw it laying on the ground. They pop off rather easily.

As for distance, my living room is only 18' and that works fine. Outside in my backyard though, I have sucessfully fired them 150' in the stock form.

[BBear]

Here are my suggestions.

Third, if you're using the Pentax 360, fire it every 2:59 seconds or it will go into standby. This is a pain and if I knew this before, I probably would have bought another 540.

Are you telling me the 540 doesnt have this incredible feature???


I've given up on Pentax flashes primarily because of this feature, which i assumed was common to all units...


Please confirm, then i'll sell my 360 and get the 540!!!

[ryan s]

1/160 in M mode works just fine for those with EV steps set to 1/3.

-- on the receivers, don't close the battery compartment too tightly -- you will lose contact and it won't work.

I replaced the battery in mine last week and it still didn't work. Ok, so I took the battery door off and it worked. Put the door on, stopped.

Sooooooo...either the door has to be lightly snapped on or left off completely. FYI I'm using Walgreens brand CR2s. They are a little thicker than the "Great Power" one it came with.

Annoying...very annoying.

[Moose]

For some reason, none of the PC connectors on my receivers seem to work. I have to put on a hotshoe with PC connnector to be able to get it to work. Anyone know why this is?

Moose