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A few months ago I posted looking for info on flash triggers. V2's had me nervous. I'd been using cables (and/or optical triggers) or wireless to that point. V2's had too may reports of "they work fine and only misfire 5% of the time" or sync speed issues and the like.
If my camera misfired 5% of the time, I'd shoot Nikon.
So after some excellent advice from a few members here and a 2 day training session in studio where the Pro used these, I thought I'd share a mini-review.
Pw's and the like are great from all reports but just too damn expensive. I mean really, I can buy an iPhone for less than a transmitter and it does a hellava lot more.
So I bought some FlashWaves. (Thanks to Genes Pentax and others for some great advice). Some parts were bought here on the forum and the rest on the site he provided here:
G9Chon - FlashWaves
So the company shipped what I needed in less than a week and answered my emails quickly. A+ place to buy.
The triggers themselves. I have more flashes than I really need but primarily use 2 x AF360's and an AF540. Added to that are 2 x AF400T's (can't beat that sucker for power). I have 1 transmitter and 3 receivers from FlashWaves. Add a couple of stands and various umbrellas and you have a great, portable studio.
So I've used the FlashWaves at 3 weddings in the past month and a number of on-site portrait shooting jobs. After a few thousand shots, not one issue with firing or sync speed. Actually my only gripe would be the AF360/540 units going to sleep in too short a time. That's why the AF400T's are so great. Powerful and when hooked up to either AC or a quantum battery, they stay on all day with much faster recycle times. Plus they work TTL with my *istD.*
For the money (a lot less than the 'better' brands), you get a totally reliable system (indoors and out) with long range, perfect sync and 100% firing rate. I almost never have the flash on camera now and shoot manual (no P-TTL issues) with a flash meter (a must have if you want to do this in a bigger way).
Last note, the FlashWaves come with every adapter you need already in the box. You can buy a few old flashes that have a sync cable port and the Flashwaves kit is prepared for them. The receivers have hotshoes on them so basically any old flash will do just fine. Plus it has shoe adapters for stand heads and a bunch of other parts for mounting. They don't list an input voltage but I'd assume they were engineered to take higher voltages. So if you had an old Vivitar 283 which would normally fry the camera after a bit of use, these take the flash off the camera to use safely.
Great system thus far, a 10 out of 10.
* I have this conversation with myself over and over again. Buy a K20D to go with my K10D.*istD setup or get a couple more used *istD's as backups. Great camera and having TTL is so darn nice. Still takes a fine shot.
Last edited by Peter Zack; 07-19-2009 at 08:40 AM.
Reason: Can't spell thread titles :(