Radio Popper vs Pocket Wizard

Hey everyone! Its been over a year since I have been on this forum and even then I am not here much.
Thanks for chiming in Mike.
No worries - glad someone emailed me - this is a very confusing and there are lots of options to consider.

What one might think is not important to their shooting style (ie: TriCoast and HyperSync) another might feel it is the Holy Grail of Photography.

Each varable needs to be looked at and balanced with your own shooting needs.

For us due to the horrible issues PocketWizard has they simply were not a choice we could rely on, while others who do not use TTL or the PW's ControlTL it would not be that much of an issue.

RadioPopper at this time also has the most advanced system with the most advanced radiowave and secure mode of communication and that played a big role into the decision for us as well. While PW has come a long way since we tested out the units early on they still do not have the complete control that RP does. With the Shield (or as many call it the Flash Condom) it finally gets their product to where RP is in firing at greater distances but then you do not have control over your Slave flash for Zoom features or other aspects which must be done only on the slave unit since the Shield covers up the flash controls. Again little things like this really mess up our style of shooting. With the strong company of PW I am sure one day they will stop playing catch up to RP, and I know it is a position they are not used to being in after 30 years of leading the industry with a simply radio triggering unit, but the fact is it is the position they are in. Their new units are pretty and work GREAT for just triggering units and many issues are now solved but for my style of shooting (almost all TTL metering) they have a long way to go still.

All these factors went into why we choose RP over PW and dropped the serious $$$ with them, but again my decision should not make your decision up for you alone. Figure out what you need in a wireless triggering family of products, your style, your budget, etc. Then look at all the options with clearly the PW and RP leading the way. Then make the choice you feel is best for you.

Again if anyone has any questions please let me know I will help out anyway I can. While it might not be the right answer it will be our honest answer no matter who sponsors us or what product we use. While I shoot Canon - Nikon flash units are better - I teach that cause it is truly what I feel to be the truth, I take that attitude in everything we teach, at least I try real hard to.

Hope to see some of you at WPPI this year in Las Vegas and our platform class on Monday night where we will be spending time sharing information on the nuts and bolts of TTL metering when it comes to Flash Photography and why many times you get messed up results when you do not understand what the metering is doing. Should be a fun and exciting few hours.

Thanks again for allowing me to answer the question and sending me the email so I could give my 2 cents. I hope to stay around and check out the forum more, heck I have been a member since 2007 I should right :)
 
Hi, I am completely unhappy with my -3- FlexTT5 (CE, Canon)... The distance where they work reliable is only about 5 Meters and this only with the Soft RF Shields on the 580EX Flashes... From 5 to 7 Meters they work maybe 3 out of 10 times - for professional use this is absolutely unusable. So for Canon Users with 580Ex Flashes better try before you buy ;-) I have sold them on ebay and am waiting for the RPs, I really hope they are more reliable...
 
So I am relatively new to OCF except in a studio setting. Right now I have a Canon 7D along with a couple Alien Bees and the older PW to fire them.

I'm looking to get into using OCF outdoors. I have a 580EX but I don't really understand how to reliably fire it. From all I read, it just isn't reliable to depend on the infrared method, so I'm wondering if I can use the PW I have, or should I look at RP?

I've been reading and reading and my head is just swimming. I'm not good with the manual, technical side of my 580EX so I'm looking toward TTL and the easiest way to just plug it all in and get it to work. Any insight??

HELP!
 
Never tried radio poppers. I enjoy my pocketwizards.

I have the tiny TT1 triggering the "TTL" TT5, and also I trigger 2 PWIIs with manual vivitar 285 flashes.

They have never failed to flash and during "the how far can i walk and flash test" they flashed further than i ever cared to walk without missing a beat.
 
There were some really good in-depth discussions on this thread almost a year ago now... have opinions changed? I'd love a "refresh" as I'm considering buying these. Well... something. :)
 
There were some really good in-depth discussions on this thread almost a year ago now... have opinions changed? I'd love a "refresh" as I'm considering buying these. Well... something. :)

+1
 
I've no experience with the PWs, but I hear they've worked out the bugs with the new system being limited by the Canon flashes' interference. Would like to hear from PW owners on that.

I went with the RPs because of that interference issue, and they've worked reliably for me without a hitch so far. I've been using them for about a year.
 
I have them and still learning as one tries new things. Kind of a pain in the butt really. KISS was not discussed in the room when they were doing Research and Development. Need a laptop to program them a certain way, and only have two channel options (manual switches) they should have put a third to default automatically as regular PW and let you program the channel with the learn button in case you had to change it to a different channel amounst other photographers. You do have a learning mode , but instructions do not tell you what it will learn.
I did send the TT1 back due to the battery it has, forget to turn it off and you are out of luck. Not like you can find that battery at local store. So opted for the TT5 as it uses a double A battery that can be found anywhere internationally. It is a little bit bigger in size but if it does more than the TT1 for about the same price I opted to go that route.
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Pocket wizard help desk , I've used a few times and got better help from the U.S. forums or other users overseas (thanks England), would be nice to send you an email once you register that an update to the software is available in case you are looking for certain options available.
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Shoot well, Joe
 
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Joe, my TT1 times out when I leave it on (or I've been lucky), and I simply carry an extra battery for it anyway. I like it better on the cam than my big TT5. Programming and software updates in all my PW's have been simple, except their program wouldn't run on one of my windows machines, and that was my machine's fault. I'd like more user/software control and options over the PWs.

I may be asking a lot, but since they are the best of the best I'd like to be able to control how long they sit idle before going into their battery save mode, and also I'd like to turn the power down 3db or so when I'm not using them to trigger flashes 1600 feet away (studio and indoors and such).
 
Joe, my TT1 times out when I leave it on (or I've been lucky), and I simply carry an extra battery for it anyway. I like it better on the cam than my big TT5. Programming and software updates in all my PW's have been simple, except their program wouldn't run on one of my windows machines, and that was my machine's fault. I'd like more user/software control and options over the PWs.

I may be asking a lot, but since they are the best of the best I'd like to be able to control how long they sit idle before going into their battery save mode, and also I'd like to turn the power down 3db or so when I'm not using them to trigger flashes 1600 feet away (studio and indoors and such).
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I hear you, know I will lock it down all in time. Just a pain to hook up to laptop everytime you want to do some changes. Can someone come up with an application for my cell phone already.
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Shoot well, Joe
 

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