*a rad review by hubby on our wireless trigger system*
I thought it
would be a good idea to briefly look at a great little gadget that we use for
our off camera flash needs. Removing the flash from the camera allows for many
more photographic techniques to be explored. These include improvements of
those poorly lit reception venues, and some fun trick photography such as
taking photos of smoke and water droplets. There are a number of devices out
there that will allow you to do this, however, we finally settled on the Cactus
V5 duo transceivers. I have deliberately decided not to go too much into the
technical detail, as not to bore anyone, but should you need additional
information it can be found at:
The Cactus V5
wireless flash transceiver is a great photographic gadget that every
photographer should consider owning. Using off camera flash open the door to
many great lighting options which allows your creativity to run wild. The
Cactus V5 is similar to the industry standard Pocket Wizards, yet a fraction of
the price. The Pocket Wizard of cause has a few more bells and whistles, but
many feature that we could live without. I have only every played around with a
Pocket Wizard for a few minutes and I might not be doing it justice, but all of
our off camera flash needs have been met with the Cactus V5.
We purchased our
Cactus V5 transceiver duo online from Gadget Infinity, which cost around R550.
Gadget Infinity is a Honk Kong based company that stocks some great
photographic equipment at affordable prices, further there service is
excellent. The shipping experience including the said questionable service from
the SA post office and customs experience I will discuss in a later post, however
the overall process of ordering and delivery could not have been less painful.
In the box
you get two identical Cactus V5 units, one of which can be set to be the
transmitter with the other being set to be a receiver. Included in the box are
the batteries needed to operate the units, 3.5mm plug cable, PC sync cable,
6.5mm plug adapter and a really nice photo album showing images from
photographers using the Cactus units. We have recently purchased a second set
of transceivers, which allow Tiffs and I to use the same off camera flash, this
is especially nice at receptions were we are both shooting.
The Cactus V5
units allow you to select multiple channels allowing you to selectively trigger
a number of different flashes. They have a range of approximately 100m which
you would probably struggle to find a need for those distances for wireless
flash. That being said, however, you can also use the units as a wireless
shuttle release, and then the distance may be advantages.
Overall the
Cactus V5 is an outstanding product. I could be nitpicky but the little issues
but they are really insignificant. We will show some behind the seams photos of
the triggers in action in a later post.
No comments:
Post a Comment