[bobD]

Must have been a good week for Pentax on Trade-moi.

I won a Ref-converter A.... been looking a while for one of these at a reasonable price. This one is mint condition from a very pleasant seller in good old Palmy Nth.
Seems he brought Pentax kit from his homeland in Japan when he moved here and is now selling off some items no longer needed.

The serendipitous note being that I was clearing old bookmarks from my browser and happened on a 3 yr old Trade-moi listing for a 280 flash.
Clicked it to see what would come up and got a listing for a current 280...looked at the sellers other listings and there it was....Ref-converter A.

[MarkJerling]

Sigma 70-300 (macro) on TM: Sigma AF 70-300mm DG For Pentax | Trade Me

A pair of Cactus V6II radio triggers. 2X Cactus Wireless Flash Transceivers V6 II | Trade Me

[Transit]

....... Feels super solid, like a quality workhorse. And Transit, I now know what you mean about that shutter. Wow.
....

Good stuff :-)

---------- Post added 20th Jun 2017 at 01:38 PM ----------

Must have been a good week for Pentax on Trade-moi.

I won a Ref-converter A....

Could you please apply it to the French clown who controlled the Crusaders game
I believe he's doing the test too...
has no concept of offside apparently

---------- Post added 20th Jun 2017 at 01:42 PM ----------

And I sold the k5-iis without further enriching TM :-)

[richandfleur]

A pair of Cactus V6II radio triggers. 2X Cactus Wireless Flash Transceivers V6 II | Trade Me

Are these the latest models?

From memory a new version came out not that long ago...

[Kiwi645hauler]

Sold for $50 👍🏻

hhaha... swap the 5 for 13 and add an extra zero to the end and all is well

[MarkJerling]

Are these the latest models?

From memory a new version came out not that long ago...

Yes, V6II is the latest model. The previous model was the V6. They have now released the firmware update for X-TTL for Sigma, Fuji and Sony and say that Pentax, Olympus, Canon and Nikon are next. (Supposedly in that order)

[richandfleur]

Yes, V6II is the latest model. The previous model was the V6. They have now released the firmware update for X-TTL for Sigma, Fuji and Sony and say that Pentax, Olympus, Canon and Nikon are next. (Supposedly in that order)

Thanks for the info.


Trying to work out why these would be the way to go over say a basic trigger, like the cowboy NPT-04 units.

[sqrrl]

If I was going to go really cheap I'd probably go for the Yongnuo RF-603
They're really cheap are reportedly not so bad for reliability and have compatible speedlights fairly cheap.
If I was going to spend more then i'd go straight to pocket wizards or something specific to the brand of strobe (ie elinchrome triggers for elinchrome).

I have access to pocket wizards, but otherwise I tend to use either a wired pc trigger or just gell a speedlight with complimentary colours to block visible light and trigger the optical sensor on the strobe with infrared - it's more reliable than a cheap wireless trigger.

Basically you get better reliability as you pay more - the flash goes off when you press the button - Shooting with pentax you're pretty well stuck with manual mode shooting (ie - no ttl), so there's not much point in paying for the feature unless you use multiple systems.

[MarkJerling]

Thanks for the info.


Trying to work out why these would be the way to go over say a basic trigger, like the cowboy NPT-04 units.

Have a chat with ClassA. He knows a lot about these. Here's a link to the previous model's review. Cactus V6 Review - Introduction | PentaxForums.com Reviews

[Kiwizinho]

If I was going to go really cheap I'd probably go for the Yongnuo RF-603
They're really cheap are reportedly not so bad for reliability and have compatible speedlights fairly cheap.
If I was going to spend more then i'd go straight to pocket wizards or something specific to the brand of strobe (ie elinchrome triggers for elinchrome).

I have access to pocket wizards, but otherwise I tend to use either a wired pc trigger or just gell a speedlight with complimentary colours to block visible light and trigger the optical sensor on the strobe with infrared - it's more reliable than a cheap wireless trigger.

Basically you get better reliability as you pay more - the flash goes off when you press the button - Shooting with pentax you're pretty well stuck with manual mode shooting (ie - no ttl), so there's not much point in paying for the feature unless you use multiple systems.

I got a YN560-TX which acts as a wireless trigger and controller and a couple of YN-560IIIs which have the wireless receiver built in. All up, I think I paid something around $300 for the pair of speedlights and trigger. The trigger also lets me remotely adjust the power and zoom on the two speedlights either independently or as a group depending on how I have them set up.
Although I'm limited to manual shooting, I'm actually pretty happy with my budget setup.

If I were to shoot anything with rapidly changing lighting or distance, it would be nice to have a TTL speedlight, but then that would cost me at least as much as my entire current lighting setup, and potentially quite a bit more.

[Class A]

Trying to work out why these would be the way to go over say a basic trigger, like the cowboy NPT-04 units.

There is a huge difference between a simple trigger and an advanced one from Yongnuou, Godox, Cactus, etc.

An advanced trigger let's you manage multiple flashes individually (-> group management). You can de-/activate them remotely as you need for dynamic situations, or just to work out the overall setup by evaluating each flash's (group's) individual contribution.

An advanced trigger also let's you change the power level and the zoom level (for each group individually) from the camera position. This is an awesome feature you'll never want to miss once you have used it. For some situations where flashes are in hard to reach places (e.g., high up on a stand, in a closed softbox, 20m away requiring climbing to access, ...) this feature can be rather essential (going beyond convenience).

Depending on the actual trigger, you'll get further goodies such as being able to cycle through multiple flashes for superfast (virtual) recycling, creating masks, creating stroboscopic multi-exposure images with spatially distributed flashes. Have a look at the Cactus V6II manual to see all the additional goodies such as delays, remote camera triggering, absolute power mode, etc.

The V6II already supports HSS for Pentax. The V6II and the Acon R930 are the only ones to do so in a convenient fashion.

Another advantage of the Cactus system is that it supports multiple brands. Not only can you use one and the same hardware for other camera systems, you can also mix and match hardware in a single system rather flexibly. Triggers from Yongnuo or Godox only support their specific product range.

If I was going to go really cheap I'd probably go for the Yongnuo RF-603

That's a basic trigger and can be fine, if you don't want anything more than simple triggering of flashes.
Make sure, though, you are avoiding brand incompatibilities. There are Yongnuo triggers that only work up to 1/160s on Pentax cameras and require tricks/modifications to actually reach 1/180s (or even 1/200s).

If I was going to spend more then i'd go straight to pocket wizards or something specific to the brand of strobe (ie elinchrome triggers for elinchrome).

I don't see how pocket wizards would be advantageous over the V6II. They don't support HSS for Pentax to start with and also lack many of the other V6II features.

When alternative radio triggers where still unreliable, pocket wizard triggers were the top of the class, but nowadays, they don't have a lot going form them, in particular not for Pentax shooters (their TTL support is for Canon/ Nikon only).

Shooting with pentax you're pretty well stuck with manual mode shooting (ie - no ttl), so there's not much point in paying for the feature unless you use multiple systems.

As Mark wrote, Cactus will release a Pentax P-TTL-capable firmware for the V6II as a free update. This firmware will allow you to use automatic metering and even mix automatic metering with manual control.

Did I miss any questions? If so, just shoot (no pun intended).

[richandfleur]

Awesome post there. Thanks!

Is that trademe price a good deal?

[Kiwi645hauler]

I use the Elinchrom Skyport transmitter plus and the universal receiver with my flashes, and my studio lights and it works pretty darn well, It even works with my film cameras via PC Sync (though i have yet to try it with the 645) or hot shoe, with upto a 200m range, and control upto 8 separate flashes
ELINCHROM - Transmitter Plus

[sqrrl]

...

As Mark wrote, Cactus will release a Pentax P-TTL-capable firmware for the V6II as a free update. This firmware will allow you to use automatic metering and even mix automatic metering with manual control.

With which strobes? I'm assuming this is with speedlights. If i can get a reliable ttl happening then I'd be quite keen to look into it for my own gear.

At my work we generally use either pocketwizards or elinchrome skyports - both are totally reliable, but that's with elinchrome, visco & bowen studio flashes, sometimes sb910's, I just run everything manual as i never know which camera I'm about to get handed.

[Class A]

Is that trademe price a good deal?

I'd say so.

From Cactus direct, you'd be paying NZ$ 131 for one unit (+ shipping from Hong Kong to NZ) and from photogear it would be $189. The TM opportunity would mean $88 - $105 for one unit.

The advantages of putting multiple flashes into different groups require at least three units. With two units, you'll only have a trigger (for the camera) and one receiver (for one flash). The only way to control more flashes without having to buy further V6II units (to be used as receivers) would be to buy RF60x flashes (as they have a radio receiver/sender built-in).