I've pretty much made up my mind on the PW's.
PROBLEM: expensive, real expensive.
I went to the local camera shop today and they showed me the Elinchrom Skyports. They didn't know much about them, but they let me read the instruction book.
After some brief research on the internet, I found a flickr discussion where a whole bunch of people bought them instead of PWs and love them. Basically, it's about $100 per unit, whether a receiver, or a transmitter. So, instead of paying $650 for a pocket wizard setup to fire 2 wireless flashes, it'll only cost me $300 with the Skyports to fire 2 wireless flashes.
Also, Skyports allow "Grouping" where I can assign flash 1 to "group 1" and flash 2 to "Group 2". On the transmitter, I can set it to "Fire group 1", "Fire group 2", or even "Fire All Groups". This seems super handy.
Pro's of Pocketwizards
-Better Built
-Better Range
-Brand will probably be around longer
-Units are transceivers
Pro's of Skyports
-Cheaper (huge huge huge pro, this means I can get them before the basketball tournament)
-allows "grouping"
-Adding units will continue the low-pricedness
The PocketWizards have more pro's, but the price and grouping ability of the Skyports are very appealing.
No question whether Pocketwizards are better...but I'm trying to decide which is right for me... and it seems like the Skyports would be.
HOWEVER, the range... I mean... I really worry that I'll spend the $300 for a skyport setup and then realize the range isn't enough. Now I'm back in boat #1, where I should've bought the Pocket Wizards.
So, how often do you guys use your pocket wizards at a distance of over 150 feet? In what scenarios would you use these at such far distances? I could totally use the extra distance at a race track to light up the dead spots... Dad gum... what am I going to do?