Pocket Wizard III

eric-holmes · Feb 20, 2012

I am definetly up for these. Anyone else? Looks like the industry standard is coming into my price range.

New PocketWizard Plus III Transceiver | BH inDepth

Overread · Feb 20, 2012

Early thoughts

1) They put the controls on the wrong side. Slim profile is good, but when one is handholding (Esp if its a bigger lens) its the right hand which controls the camera and buttons, not the left (which is lens holding). So having the controls on the left means you've got to reach over to adjust them, rather than having them easily available to either hand on the back or to the right, controlling hand, on the right side.

2) A shame its not made low profile so you can use it and a hot-shoe flash (though I'm sure with the use of PC cords and cables you can easily have it connected to the camera and held on a bracket

tirediron · Feb 20, 2012

Wow... cheap like borscht! I agree with Over about the control placement, but as I've already got a bag of Plus IIs, I'd use one of those on the camera and buy three or four of these and have a trigger for every single light in my stable. I've never used every light I own at the same time, but it could happen...

I wonder if this will cause a flood of cheap Plus IIs on the used market? (He asked hopefully)

Dominantly · Feb 20, 2012

Saw the review on f stoppers and they look awesome. Does want.

Bossy · Feb 20, 2012

I need one, I've still got to think about it. You still have to buy a $200 reciever to go with it, right?

2WheelPhoto · Feb 20, 2012

If they offer the student discount such as their other PW products I'll have one of these VERY soon.... like as soon as I can get my paws on it

Overread · Feb 20, 2012

The Wizard III is a transceiver, so I assume with a PC cord you can easily connect it to a flash (or to a hotshoe with a PC connection point and then attach a flash to that). You could do the whole thing with PWIIIs

Though their mini series like PocketWizard MiniTT1 Radio Slave Transmitter for Canon 801-140 would still have the bonus of the highspeed sync mode - though I'm unsure at which end you'd need to mount that (I assume you'd mount that to the camera and the PWIII to the flash - however you've then lost your PWIII group controls - though you've gained a hotshoe flash again on the camera along with the highseed syncs for your other flashes in the setup).

Big Mike · Feb 21, 2012

$139 is an OK price. They way you guys were talking, I was hoping for less.

One thing I'd like to know...is whether or not you could use Plus II units and still use the 'groups' function of the Plus III.

Big Mike · Feb 21, 2012

1) They put the controls on the wrong side. Slim profile is good, but when one is handholding (Esp if its a bigger lens) its the right hand which controls the camera and buttons, not the left (which is lens holding). So having the controls on the left means you've got to reach over to adjust them, rather than having them easily available to either hand on the back or to the right, controlling hand, on the right side.

If it's just a single contact point, you might be able to slide the unit into the hotshoe in either direction.

Overread · Feb 21, 2012

I'd rather know why the MIII don't have the ettl and highspeed sync features of the II plus. Unless PW are going to split their range into a lower cost base unit and then higher cost Plus units with additional brand features.

The lower price is very enticing - esp for those of us who want a serious wireless control but can't justify the higher prices of many of their units as compared to the basic functions of cheaper market options. Sounds a little like PW want to capture a bigger market segment than they already do.

tirediron · Feb 21, 2012

Big Mike said:
$139 is an OK price. They way you guys were talking, I was hoping for less.

One thing I'd like to know...is whether or not you could use Plus II units and still use the 'groups' function of the Plus III.

I can't think of any reason why not, as long as you assign the Plus IIs to groups controlled by the four frequencies they can receive.

Ironic that the original PW (The old brown ones) had a ton of channels, then they reduced to four, and now they're back to a whole bunch.

KmH · Feb 21, 2012

As I understand it the III's are backwards compatible.

Here is the Pocket Wizard web site - PocketWizard® - Remote flash and camera triggers for professional and advanced amateur photographers

Bossy · Feb 21, 2012

The Strobist seems to like it- Strobist: PocketWizard Plus III's: More Trigger, Less Cash

cameramike · Apr 26, 2012

After using both the Flex (intelligent) units and plus IIs (dumb) units PW will ALWAYS have two separate products the cheaper "dumb" trigger for manual use and the more expensive "intelligent" unit for TTL and high speed sync. The other big name in mainstream is Radio Poppers. They have the exact same story, cheaper dumb triggers and more expensive intelligent units.

I have 2 of the Plus iiis on order and am itching to get them in. I'll probably drop for another 2 once they actually are in the market or if I can land on some cheap plus iis. If you need high speed sync get a flex or mini on the camera and a plus for the flash. Read here PocketWizard® - HyperSync

The plus III offers EXACTLY what it should, a slimmer design, built in antenna, group control, USB firmware upgrade (plus power through USB), and high speed camera trigger.

2WheelPhoto · Apr 26, 2012

cameramike said:
After using both the Flex (intelligent) units and plus IIs (dumb) units PW will ALWAYS have two separate products the cheaper "dumb" trigger for manual use and the more expensive "intelligent" unit for TTL and high speed sync. The other big name in mainstream is Radio Poppers. They have the exact same story, cheaper dumb triggers and more expensive intelligent units.

I have 2 of the Plus iiis on order and am itching to get them in. I'll probably drop for another 2 once they actually are in the market or if I can land on some cheap plus iis. If you need high speed sync get a flex or mini on the camera and a plus for the flash. Read here PocketWizard® - HyperSync

The plus III offers EXACTLY what it should, a slimmer design, built in antenna, group control, USB firmware upgrade (plus power through USB), and high speed camera trigger.

With the PW's the TT1 (smarter) can hyper sync to a PWII or III (dumber), meaning with a monolight/manual flash you can achieve up to 1/8000th sync!