What's so special about PocketWizard?

[Village Idiot]

PLEASE SIGN ME UP for two sets of super-awesome, $100 xbee-Unpopular triggers! Hurry up with the production! I need something to back up my Pocket Wizards in case of a hurricane!!!

PIII's are only $130. They'd have to be $50 each for me to even think about it.

Of course, Google shows the xbees are about $25 a pop. That's doesn't leave a lot of money for...well...everything else.

 

[unpopular]

i did my math wrong. 1/8000 is 1.25ms.

Still, even analog sample rate on the Arduino is 10K/second. I'm guessing the digital inputs are faster. I don't know about round trip...

The difference PW compensates for is the shutter and light. Nothing to do with sample rate of the two units looking for each other. Even a manual flash such as a manual non-TTL vivitar flash ON the camera or a studio light ON the sync chord the max speed without a calibration tool somewhere such as PW's software is 1/320th or "slightly" better if you're lucky before you get the curtain crap at the bottom of your pic.

No. The PW has to sample the camera-side trigger and return a flash-side trigger within 1.25us. That requires that the sample rate must be 8k/sec, and must process the information it receives within that period. It also must transfer the data within 1/8000 sec. This shouldn't be a problem. Even the arduinoscope project which has significantly more overhead than simply synchronizing fash and camera has a sample rate of 3k/sec, and this is analog. The arduino has an analog sample rate of 10k/sec. I'm kind of new to microcontrollers, but I'm guessing that the digital inputs are read at clock speed (16mhz)?

The xbee also has a MCU built-in but I don't know much about them. For now I'll prototype on the arduino.

 

[unpopular]

PLEASE SIGN ME UP for two sets of super-awesome, $100 xbee-Unpopular triggers! Hurry up with the production! I need something to back up my Pocket Wizards in case of a hurricane!!!

PIII's are only $130. They'd have to be $50 each for me to even think about it.

Of course, Google shows the xbees are about $25 a pop. That's doesn't leave a lot of money for...well...everything else.

What is the single most advanced PW unit? Is there a model that can do everything all the others can?

 

[2WheelPhoto]

i did my math wrong. 1/8000 is 1.25ms.

Still, even analog sample rate on the Arduino is 10K/second. I'm guessing the digital inputs are faster. I don't know about round trip...

The difference PW compensates for is the shutter and light. Nothing to do with sample rate of the two units looking for each other. Even a manual flash such as a manual non-TTL vivitar flash ON the camera or a studio light ON the sync chord the max speed without a calibration tool somewhere such as PW's software is 1/320th or "slightly" better if you're lucky before you get the curtain crap at the bottom of your pic.

No. The PW has to sample the camera-side trigger and return a flash-side trigger within 1.25us. That requires that the sample rate must be 8k/sec, and must process the information it receives within that period. It also must transfer the data within 1/8000 sec. This shouldn't be a problem. Even the arduinoscope project which has significantly more overhead than simply synchronizing fash and camera has a sample rate of 3k/sec, and this is analog. The arduino has an analog sample rate of 10k/sec. I'm kind of new to microcontrollers, but I'm guessing that the digital inputs are read at clock speed (16mhz)?

The xbee also has a MCU built-in but I don't know much about them. For now I'll prototype on the arduino.

No matter what your triggers do, you must have the software to calibrate the shutter and studio light to flash faster than the camera's manual flash sync. No way around it. Whether a cable or a trigger, the camera and light are limited. Put your flash in manual mode (mimick a studio light) and pop it on the camera and see max sync speed between shutter and light =)

All the BSEE and MSEE math we throw at it won't change the standard out of box sync speed

 

[Village Idiot]

PLEASE SIGN ME UP for two sets of super-awesome, $100 xbee-Unpopular triggers! Hurry up with the production! I need something to back up my Pocket Wizards in case of a hurricane!!!

PIII's are only $130. They'd have to be $50 each for me to even think about it.

Of course, Google shows the xbees are about $25 a pop. That's doesn't leave a lot of money for...well...everything else.

What is the single most advanced PW unit? Is there a model that can do everything all the others can?

Probably the FlexTT5. That or the Multi Max. The Multi Max does not do TTL, but has a good amount of features. One of the ones listed is a noise sniffer.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

+1 FlexTT5

Multi max controls up to 4 "groups" of PWs, another feature unit

 

[12sndsgood]

if you are doing this, keep track of your time to see how much it actually does cost you to make.

 

[unpopular]

^^ I really have no interest in that. Seriously. Even if I were interested in selling it, it's a dumb way to look at it from an individual developer's POV. If you have a team of engineers to pay, that's one thing, but if it's just me then I can view my own time spent as investment-hours, not paid-hours.

 

[unpopular]

it will be a while before I can snoop around at what the camera and flash are saying to one another. But I know I can get the timing worked out such that I can use a remote to emulate Hypersync. It seems that all that is involved here is a matter of timing. So if I press one button, I can have the flash trigger, wait a period of time, and have the camera's shutter release.

Getting it to work with the TTL interface is just a matter of figuring out what the camera is saying to the flash when you press the release button. That's not too difficult. Just get a TTL flash and an off-camera cable, snip the cable in half, intercept using a logic analyzer, and send the signal on it's way to the flash.

On a side note, Nikon's iTTL is really straightforward.

 

[12sndsgood]

^^ I really have no interest in that. Seriously. Even if I were interested in selling it, it's a dumb way to look at it from an individual developer's POV. If you have a team of engineers to pay, that's one thing, but if it's just me then I can view my own time spent as investment-hours, not paid-hours.

So do you not value your time? you said you can do it cheaper, well working for free im sure many people could make a lot of things when they only factor in parts. i dont think its a dumb way of thinking it at all. time is money wether your paying an engineer or paying yourself.

if i can work at a job and pay for an item by working 5 hours. that to me is better then building an item myself that takes me 20 hours. if that's the case i should have just worked at my main job for 20 hours and i could have just bought 4 of the item and been well ahead. too many people underestimate there own personal time.

 

[unpopular]

I'd be willing to work for free on R&D if I knew that it would mean I can be competitive later on.

If you're talking about assembly, that's a different matter entirely.

but I'm not even sure what the point of this discussion is. i already said the project will be open source and I have no interest in manufacturing. I don't know the first thing about manufacturing, and I really am not interested in the liability involved. All I know is that using retail parts and custom software, it looks like I can build a radio trigger that has better functionality than PW.

I don't have hundreds of dollars lying around to buy a PW radio, time is another matter. In other words: it's a hobby.

 

[jake337]

^^ I really have no interest in that. Seriously. Even if I were interested in selling it, it's a dumb way to look at it from an individual developer's POV. If you have a team of engineers to pay, that's one thing, but if it's just me then I can view my own time spent as investment-hours, not paid-hours.

So do you not value your time? you said you can do it cheaper, well working for free im sure many people could make a lot of things when they only factor in parts. i dont think its a dumb way of thinking it at all. time is money wether your paying an engineer or paying yourself.

if i can work at a job and pay for an item by working 5 hours. that to me is better then building an item myself that takes me 20 hours. if that's the case i should have just worked at my main job for 20 hours and i could have just bought 4 of the item and been well ahead. too many people underestimate there own personal time.

It seems to me he is just doing this because he enjoys it. If he is doing this during his off time from work, then it is irrelevant how long it takes.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Its a very interesting project indeed, for him to take on the best of the best!

 

[table1349]

PLEASE SIGN ME UP for two sets of super-awesome, $100 xbee-Unpopular triggers! Hurry up with the production! I need something to back up my Pocket Wizards in case of a hurricane!!!

PIII's are only $130. They'd have to be $50 each for me to even think about it.

Of course, Google shows the xbees are about $25 a pop. That's doesn't leave a lot of money for...well...everything else.

What is the single most advanced PW unit? Is there a model that can do everything all the others can?

That would probably be the PW Flash-O-Matic 9000. It slices, it dices, it makes pretty fruit salads while you take pictures all for the low price of $19.95. If you act now you will,get not one, but two complete sets. Just pay separate shipping and handling.


Seriously there is no one does it all model. Each is designed for a specific task. That's why they freaking work.

 

[12sndsgood]

^^ I really have no interest in that. Seriously. Even if I were interested in selling it, it's a dumb way to look at it from an individual developer's POV. If you have a team of engineers to pay, that's one thing, but if it's just me then I can view my own time spent as investment-hours, not paid-hours.

So do you not value your time? you said you can do it cheaper, well working for free im sure many people could make a lot of things when they only factor in parts. i dont think its a dumb way of thinking it at all. time is money wether your paying an engineer or paying yourself.

if i can work at a job and pay for an item by working 5 hours. that to me is better then building an item myself that takes me 20 hours. if that's the case i should have just worked at my main job for 20 hours and i could have just bought 4 of the item and been well ahead. too many people underestimate there own personal time.

It seems to me he is just doing this because he enjoys it. If he is doing this during his off time from work, then it is irrelevant how long it takes.

well when you say you can build something cheaper, but then arn't going to figure in actual costs (time) then are you building it cheaper? i'm sure if pocketwizards took out all the time they spent on R&D and build costs there product would be 25% of the cost.


unpopular. i know you dont intend to market this or sell it or any of that. my point was just about you saying you can build it cheaper but not figuring in your build time and r&D etc.

I guess I just have a diffrent price on my time, I have friends and family and bills to pay so i place a high value on my time.