Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 Transceiver For Canon TTL Flashes and Digital SLR Cameras
by Pocket Wizard
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Our Price: $229.00 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $209.99 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 Transceiver For Canon TTL Flashes and Digital SLR Cameras
Customer Review: April 2010: Still Just AWEFULL. Good with ONLY ONE LIGHT
Summary: 1 Stars
One big thing not mentioned in other reviews: THEY ARE AWFUL WITH MULTIPLE TT5s.
LET ME SAY AGAIN: IF YOU USE MORE THAN TWO LIGHTS, THEY ARE COMPLETELY UNRELIABLE.
I've written many highly rated reviews of camera equipment here on Amazon. I have had people email me from my website thanking me for clearly written reviews here. I've been paid by several large colleges to teach technical lighting workshops to masters of photography students. I'm a young tech savy guy, and I cannot get these things to work reliably enough. Especially at 220 apiece.
If you use only one or maybe two 580EXIIs remotely, they are OK. If you add a third or forth, they begin sporadically failing for no reason. I have embarrassed myself too many times on paid assignments and screwed up shots. I now use the Plus IIs instead, which work flawlessly every time from any distance.
I have read every suggestion about extending range and tried them. Yes, relay, dumb trigger mode, different channels, etc, but these ARE STILL JUST AWEFULL. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Slowed down the shutter speed, uses the metal baggie thing they mailed out, I tried everything.
Its amazing how their are these long reviews here talking about elaborate techniques to make them work. These people are amateurs and tolerate junk and fall for marketing campains. I am a creative artist trying to set up a shot, I don't want to worry about what directions antennas are pointed.
If you make money shooting photography, you will burn out the batteries quickly anyway in high speed sync. Indoors with multiple 580EXIIs, you light up the room so evenly and consistantly you can just shoot in manual anyway. You don't need these.
For A REAL PROFESSIONAL, you will break these things left and right. The hot shoes are about $25 to replace. Ridiculous.
Plus IIs are great if you don't mind full manual, but the Radio Poppers are great too. The best value are Alien Bee triggers.
Please feel free to comment with questions
Selling them online.
Customer Review: Watch out! Don't use a 580 EX II with this!
Summary: 3 Stars
If you've got Canon 580 EX II flashes I would recommend not buying this. It killed the 580 EX II that we tried on it on a shoot after about 30 minutes. After thirty minutes the strobe would only do a pre flash full power and then not a flash that actually synced with the camera for exposure. Sent it into Canon which is still covering it under warranty but only because I haven't explained what killed it. The flash would not work on the camera anymore as well and didn't even work in manual mode either.
Now something that they give very little information about is the black executioner hood that you have to put on the 580 EX II and the special adapter. It is their solution for some sort of EM or RF disturbance that the 580 EX II produces that disrupts the Flex TT5. I'm assuming this contributed to the execution of my 580 EX II because if that radiation is being emitted it's not meant to be caged in a bag to be be reabsorbed by the flash. I'm not an RF engineer but I have an electrical engineer and an RF engineer in the back of my studio who would probably corroborate my theory if I asked really nice.
The hood also prevents you from accessing the controls easily on the back of the strobe.
Oddly, the Flex TT5 seem to work perfectly with the 550 EX II syncing at anywhere we tried it up to and above 1/2000 of a second. It also seems to work perfectly with the 430 EX flash.
After this experience we've read numerous reviews about these pocket wizards doing the same thing to other people's 580 EX II flashes. Pocket Wizard normally produces excellent devices that work perfectly every time so this transceiver not working as they expected is a shock to every one probably including Pocket Wizard.
Also their sales information is very sketchy about what they do and do not support which is very frustrating. There doesn't seem to be a definitive source of what is supported and how much of it is supported. So I'm here to tell you it is not very well supported for the Canon 580 EX II flash and it might kill it.
Customer Review: Induces Cognitive Dissonance - Pocketwizard WAS Failproof
Summary: 1 Stars
As a huge fan of the Pocketwizard II+, I jumped on this opportunity to incorporate on-camera ETTL capability with my Canon 450D.
Yeah, I read all the reviews that detailed this products problems but thought, "That couldn't happen to me. I have the newest Canon Rebel with the newest flash. I have fired thousands of shots using the PWII+ without a single failure. PW has a golden reputation which is why it costs $200 as opposed to the $35 fleabay 'poverty wizards'. There is no way those reviews could be true, they must be written by the competition or by drunk noobs. PW would not soil their reputation by releasing a product like this unless it has passed thorough testing."
So I hooked it up and set it to trigger a couple Vivitar 285HV flashes with a 580EXII on camera. They were maybe 20 feet away, maximum. The test pops worked but when I took a shot with the camera only one of the two vivitars would pop. With a line of people waiting to get their picture taken I took the 580EXII off the camera and it worked, flawlessly. Problem was that I needed the 580EXII infrared autofocus assist because I was firing outdoors in complete darkness. I came up with a work around but in the meantime I looked like a fumbling amateur in front of 200 of my peers and potential future clients.
This proved (to me) the theory that PW made a brand-specific device that has SERIOUS radio interference problems with said device. Isn't there some FCC regulation that is supposed to prevent this?
So were are we now?
#1: Don't take gear to a job you haven't tested and practiced with. That was my bad.
#2: Thank god for Amazon's rockin return policy.
#3: I have went from a PW fanboy to not knowing what pocketwizard means anymore. It feels good to have trust and faith in things and it hurts when that is taken away. PW, please recall this product and salvage your good name. We are waiting...
Customer Review: Little magic gadget
Summary: 5 Stars
(same review on TT1)
I used to use Canon ST-E2 on my 40D and 5D mark II to remote control my 3 580EX-II. But due to limitation of infrared, flash unit has to be within the sight to ST-E2 and distance is short (~30feet). Because of it, I can't freely move my camera, ex: needed to tweak my flash if using softbox which may block reception, and I was still suffering with missing flash shot.
Then I learnt that pocket wizard MultiMax/Plus II can resolve this issue (using radio frequency and no more infrared). But those units looked awkard (and cheap materials) and connection via cable is not secured to me. So I returned my MultiMax/Plus II and moved on to Mini TT1/Flex TT5, then BINGO! This is the right move! They work perfectly with my 580EX-II, no more miss flash shot, size is smaller (no more ugly box with antenna on my camera) and connection (hotshoe) is more secured. The channel can be easily PC-configured via USB cable and software (included in the box) or using "learn" mode (haven't tried yet) to train other units. PW website also has several video to show how other pros love this.
One known issue is that currently flash on TT1 is not supported for 5D mark II yet and may be soon enabled by future firmware update. This doesn't bother me much since mostly I either work with one single flash on camera (without TT1) or multiple remote flash units (with TT1/TT5).
One more minor thing I still not figure out is how to use Flex TT5 with P1 cable to remotely trigger my camera as MultiMax (somehow the hit rate is < 50%)...
Summary - the best radio solution for Canon flash! Hope this helps your decision making. :-)
04/05/2009 UPDATE:
PW released the firmware update on 04/02. This update resolved all my issues!! Great job PW!!!
Customer Review: Nothing But Trouble
Summary: 1 Stars
I've had my FlexTT5 combo for quite awhile now and I have had nothing but problems. Only twice have I used them with great success. My first ouch was while walking with a 1DMKII on my shoulder with a TT5 and 550 EX mounted. I was less than happy as my camera got light and I noticed the 550Ex and TT5 laying in the grass. The units worked and I just used the one with the broken foot as the off camera unit.
Used these once since than with no problems (only a handful of exposures), put them away and recently took them out for some basketball, beautiful, perfect everything. A few weeks earlier I was having problems with consistenty yet finished my assignment. A week later, it was fire once, misfire once. Updated firmware, thought I had the problem licked and was way wrong as I had to resort to my off camera cord. Spent a few hours with firmware, online and checking settings and realized that trying to fix a pair of radios was kind of silly so I had a third unit overnighted from amazon.
Updated firmware and settings and headed out on a more critical than usual assignment. I was being laughed at by my such objects because my flash was just not working, tried everthing and went to cord to get the job done.
Left the TT5's in my bag for a few weeks and used the cord because I couldn't afford failure. Today I sat down to troubleshoot my babies and one TT5 wouldn't even power up, yet was able to update the firmware kind of, I couldn't reset because batteries provided zero power. Was unable to get the other 2 to work and sit with $600 worth of plastic.
I'm used to being on the cutting edge and teaching others, this has been very disappointing to say the least.
The rating of one is because there is no lower.