[Eruditass]

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I documented my troubleshooting w/ this in the RF602 thread.
Pentax doesn't send out half-press the same way as Nikon and if you get the Canon one (they usually sent that because the cables were the same for Pentax's shutter release), it didn't work at all.
The triggers send some data when you half-press to prep it for shutter release. If they never see the half-press, you only get 1/125 sync speeds which is what I experienced.

I went to Radiopopper JrX Studios and have been extremely happy with them. Remote control of flash power makes you incredibly more efficient for location shoots once you try it...

According to this thread and others, the Nikon Tx will get the half-press if seated exactly right (but it's not a perfect fit).

The half-press trick is to half-press the button on the transmitter, then take the shot. Most people tend to use some tape to hold the button down in the half-pressed position.

I assume this works on any version transmitter. Does this mean it keeps all of the flashes awake all the time and eats up power How hard is it to tape it halfway?

Or, apparently you can cut a wire and get the same effect, but lose wake-up?
http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157623933431704/

Yeah, both Meike and RF-602 are now the same price.

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Last edited by Eruditass; 10-27-2010 at 05:23 PM.

[pop4]

I assume this works on any version transmitter. Does this mean it keeps all of the flashes awake all the time and eats up power How hard is it to tape it halfway?

Yes, the half-press trick worked on both the Canon and Nikon RF-602 Tx that I have. I haven't actually tried taping the switch myself. With my RF-602 triggers, what I've done is taken them apart and removed all the pins except the centre pin, and at 1/125th, everything is fine, so I just shoot at 1/125th. I don't know about wake up since I tend not to leave my flashes alone that long before using them.
One day, I'll get around to soldering the pressure switch so that it is permanently half-pressed, and I'll also find a way to put an on-off switch on the TX so that the permanent half-press isn't using up battery life. But until that day, I'll just keep doing what I've been doing.

So anyway, who here is keen on taking the plunge on the Meike units?

[Eruditass]

I may.. where did you see that the Meike Nikon and Canon Tx are the same and universal? Just the 4th bullet in the OP's spec?

[pop4]

I may.. where did you see that the Meike Nikon and Canon Tx are the same and universal? Just the 4th bullet in the OP's spec?

Nope, here's the website, and here's the photo of the TX hotshoe connection. It still seems to be early days yet for the Meike units, and there's not much information out there about them.

[GerryL]

This look promising.
I hope someone updates this with their experiences.
I like the AAA batteries and the PC sync port.

[Eruditass]

From Link Delight

For this remote, yes it can work for Canon and Nikon camera. You just need to change different remote cord for different camera.

Just ordered a pair. Now to decide what flash guns to get. YN-560 or a used SB-XX? More features vs more power (YN-560 apparently only measures 33 GN @ 35mm and not 39)

[GerryL]

The best of luck to your purchase and please get back to us and give us a report.
I also found something different but much more expensive although it is kind of interesting since it can switch from one flash set-up to another by just selecting switches on the transmitter itself.
It also says "this can be used for remote cameras too"..whatever that means.
I hope it means you can trigger the camera remotely too.

It is called the TF-371.

Here's the link: TF-371 Wireless Grouping Flash Trigger Canon 7D 5D 50D - eBay (item 220671078839 end time Nov-16-10 22:55:42 PST)

[chalion]

I hope it means you can trigger the camera remotely too.

It is called the TF-371.

Reading the description and looking at similar triggers it does look to be also a wireless remote.

[Eruditass]

Received the MK-RC7.

Seemed finicky at first - would get stuck on half-press green mode and not respond without having to remove batteries and reinsert.

They seem to be working good now. Half-press works (I got the "Canon" version for the cord, but they said it was compatible with Nikon as well) and allows sync at 1/180 perfectly maybe 3/4ths of the time. The rest of the time there's a tiny sliver at the bottom. Without a half press, I get a dark band pretty often at 1/180, but 1/160 appears to work 90% of the time.

Pulling these numbers mostly out of my ass, have not done much range testing. Fired it on one end of my house through a couple walls next to my wifi router and next to one of my wifi clients successfully. Flash wake-up does not work on my sigma EF-530 though and of the maybe 50 times I've fired it, I've had 3 or so missfires, of which I've heard the rf-602's are better at.

I was under the impression that the Rx hotshoe would not have a stop at the end, letting the flash slide too far forward, but this is not the case.

So far I'm pretty satisfied and will probably be ordering 1 or 2 (depending on how I like the YN-560 optical slave) extra Rx over the RF-502 for dual battery support, and the half-press recognition.

[Class A]

Eruditass, what was it you read about the Cactus V4 that made you disregard them?
They sync at 1/180 all the time a 100%, no half-press nonsense required, work with flashes with a trigger voltage from 0-300V and are very affordable.

I cannot fault them (except maybe for their limited range, but in practice I never exceeded their operating range) and being forced to jump through half-press hoops and not even get a 100% rate would annoy the hell out of me.