Will is a Pocket Wizard fan. He has several that he attaches to his off-camera flashes (Strobist style). He took one of the Strobist workshops a few weekends ago. I will let him tell you more about that, and about the PW. As you know, I am an SU-800 user. I think the key difference is that SU-800's require a line-of-site with the Nikon flashes they control because they use infrared light. Pocket Wizards use radio signals, which work do not have to be in the line of sight of the master PW. They can work around corners, through walls and windows, etc.

There are very distinct differences between using pocket wizards vs. SU-800 or other pieces of the Nikon or Canon wireless systems. I'll talk a little bit about both and then discuss something new on the horizon that could be a better option.

Pocket Wizards have been the gold standard for years. Reliable, durable, and yes, expensive. I own six and use them all the time. They've evolved a bit over the years and include many advanced features that you may or may not need.

The good news is that since the PWs are radio triggered, they do not need to be "line of sight" and the range is incredible - hundreds of feet depending on the conditions you're in. So you can place them just about anywhere and they will fire pretty consistently. On a big job, you don't want to have to worry about a cheap trigger not firing your strobes. I also use PWs quite often to trigger remote cameras (you need to buy a different cord to do this). I've placed cameras in many positions at sporting events where a human being is not allowed to stand and it makes for very unique photos.

But the main thing you need to know about PWs is that they are NOT TTL. The ETTL info that our fancy cameras generate (telling the flash exactly how much light to put out based on distance to subject and other factors read through the lens) is not transmitted by the pocket wizard. So you have to use your strobes on manual or one of the other non-ttl modes. If you're comfortable shooting in manual (which everyone should be at some point!), then the only issue is convenience. If you have a strobe mounted up high or in some other inconvenient location and you realize it's putting out too much or too little light, you have to physically get to to the strobe to change it's power level.

The Nikon or Canon systems, ARE TTL! Very cool technology. Not only will it help you get your exposures correct, but you can also dial in exposure compensation and ratios right from the camera. In the Nikon setup, you have three "groups" so you can assign any number of strobes to A, B, or C. When you realize that your backlight is too bright (group C, for example), you can just dial it down at the camera. The downside is that it's based on infrared technology and is "line of sight," so the sensor on every strobe must be able to "see" your triggering unit (the SU-800 or SB-800 for example). That makes it difficult to put a light behind furniture or inside a softbox. Also, the range is pretty short and it doesn't always work too well outside in direct sunlight.

I often shoot using both setups. I'll use the TTL technology on the lights I can see and put Pocket Wizards on the ones I can't.

Now here's some very exciting news. There's a new product that's been "coming soon" for what seems like forever. It's called the Radiopopper http://www.radiopopper.com. It's developed by a company I know nothing about, but according to their blog they've just started the production process and are going to take pre-orders shortly. If this unit works like they say it will, it will revolutionize the field.

You attach a Radiopopper transmitter to your existing SU-800 and the receiver(s) to your strobes. It reads the TTL data from the SU-800 and sends it using RADIO technology so it doesn't have to be line-of-sight. Yes, this seems like the best of both worlds. They're making versions for both Nikon and Canon. I plan on buying a batch of these as soon as I can. They have a lot of buzz and I'm pretty excited about it as well. It's taken them longer to get this to market than they originally promised, but they've been relatively transparent about the delays. I can only hope that it works like the say and the company runs their business correctly to keep up with demand and future development.

Of course, if you need to trigger remote cameras, you'll still need Pocket Wizards for that. Also, if you're using big studio strobes (which are all manual anyway) then Pocket Wizards are still the way to go.

Hope that helps.

David Bergman
Portfolio: http://www.DavidBergman.net
Blog: http://davidbergman.blogspot.com/

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David nailed it.

I have not had much luck using the ETTL enabled infra-red communication and would not be able to work with the above mentioned limitations of infra-red.

For both my studio lights and my speedlites, I utilize 4 Pocketwizard Plus II's.

There are two main PocketWizard Models - The Plus II and the MultiMax.

The Plus II ($188.95 at B&H) is a 4 channel unit. Each unit can transmit and receive commands. If you are on a shoot with multiple photographers utilizing PocketWizards (ie. a strobist or LUMU meetup), then you will very likely cross channels if there are not planned channels and rotations between who is shooting. It is very frustrating to have two other photogs constantly blowing your flash at full power!

The MultiMax ($295 at B&H) supports 32 separate channels.

Both are radio frequency and have a spectacular range of 1,600 feet.

As David explained, they only send trigger commands, no TTL. As I have really only been working with manually set strobes, this has not been a limitation for me. For the style of flashed-photography that I do (both in studio/editorial and live performance), the ETTL doesn't set the flash where I want it. If you could benefit from ETTL & RF, then definitely check out the RadioPoppers.

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Will Hawkins Photography, LLC
will.j.hawkins@gmail.com
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www.willhawkinsphotography.com

I mostly shoot manual exposure and manual flash, but I still prefer to use the Nikon CLS because it allows me to control the output of each remote flash from the controlling unit in the hotshoe (I use an SB-800 as a controller). PW's do not offer this level of control, but nevertheless are nececessary when the distance is too great or line of sight cannot be achieved.