I gave it some thought. I did not want my remotes to disintegrate quickly, or fail on a location work. But I don't really work in extremely harsh situations and I always can take reasonable care of my gear. Therefore I did not require any heavy-duty product at a price tag of $500 or more.
I looked some more on Internet checking reviews for less known brands and their prices. As often with me - I am willing to take some risk and try a less known brand if it looks reasonably well made and priced. I have to admit - I lost a few times in this game, but I won perhaps more times than i lost, so all is good.
After some more deliberation I ordered on ebay set of a trigger-transmitter and two receivers called Pixel Soldier from a Hong Kong company (just search for Pixel Soldier on ebay, you will quickly find them). They arrived promptly and the price I paid was among the lowest prices I could actually find for anything of that sort - around $100 for the set of 3 pieces (it is even less expensive for set of 1 and 1).
I use them constantly for almost a year now, and I can say they easily passed my quality and reliability test. They are light and small, yet reasonably strong, and they work to perfection.
Just recently I had a chance to use their special feature, and I loved it. Together with my friend-photographer we had a shoot together. To keep things simple, we used only one set of three strobes.
Normally it would be just one of us able to use wireless trigger, or we would have independent strobes on set, cluttering it quite badly. Thankfully my friend uses the same brand of remotes, and it all worked beautifully.
Each of us wanted to use only two strobes at a time - one strobe was the same for both of us and we shared it, while we had slightly different angle for our additional "personal" strobes.
These remotes have three channels which can be flexibly configured. So, my remote transmitter was set for channels A+C, my friend's - for channels A+ B.
Receivers plugged to our "personal" strobes were set to our exclusive channels - mine to C, and his to B. The strobe we both wanted to use was set to Awhich we shared on our transmitters.
This way strobes worked perfectly for both of us, each of us had the desired light control, and we shared our lighting being able to have a different light setup for each camera. A beauty!
(I need to say that for the shared flash we used my new Fomex (see previous review). Its lightening-fast recharge made it problem-free for both of us to shot at random. It was always ready to go!)
What I also like a lot in my remotes are control lights showing in green when they are connected and ready for shot, or reminding you to switch them of with flashing red light, after you're done.
They are well designed and well made. In my personal opinion they are worth more than the low ebay price I paid. Two happy thumbs up!
I paste below some more info and specs from Pixel Soldier in hope you may find it handy (select your model, etc.)
Thank you for visiting, and as always - if you find it helpful - click Share or Like button. Cheers!
Derek
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Photographic accessories manufacturer Pixel Enterprise Ltd. are releasing a new model of wireless flash trigger, the Pixel Soldier TF-37x.
Wireless Flash Grouping is the main feature added to the Soldier TF-37X since the Pawn TF-36X. In addition to 16 frequency channels (the Dip switches for which are still buried in the battery compartment) the Pixel Soldier offers three Wireless Flash Groups A, B and C. With a simple switch on the receiver you can quickly set a flash, studio light or remote camera to any of the three groups.
What’s more, the transmitter features a control panel that allows you to select and trigger multiple groups at once. This creates seven (7) different combinations which are:
- A only
- B only
- C only
- A and B
- A and C
- B and C
- A, B and C (all)
Features
- Professional flash trigger with simple shutter remote control
- Wake-up function wakes compatible flashes from sleep mode
- Transmitter can control A, B and C groups individually with 7 different flash combinations
- Receivers can be set as group A, B or C
- Swappable shutter release cable for your camera model
- Power saving mode on the transmitter
- Receiver battery life of up to 400hrs with 2xAAAs: more than 10x the life of similar products
- Low voltage design allows use of rechargeable batteries
- Multi-power design allows use of power socket
- Syncs up to 1/250-1/320sec on compatible cameras
Specifications
| Type | FSK 2.4GHz Wireless System | |
|---|---|---|
| Operation Range | 100m | |
| Channel | 16 | |
| Transmit Power | ||
| Sensitivity | -97dB | |
| Cable length | 1.2m (coiled style) | |
| Standby Time | Transmitter | 3 years (CR-2 lithium ion battery) |
| Receiver | 400 hours (2x AA alkaline battery) | |
| Dimensions (L*W*H) | Transmitter | 66 * 37.5 * 28.5 mm |
| Receiver | 80 * 37.5 * 30 mm | |
Which model?
- TF-371 – Canon
- TF-372 – Nikon
- TF-373 – Sony
- TF-374 – Olympus & Panasonic 4/3
Photo from Pixel Enterprise.
