Pocket Wizard shot 2 ~ Pictures and Technique
August 14th, 2009
This is the second shot I took with the new Pocket Wizard TTL system. I used a 70-200mm lens on my 5Dmk2 camera. It is lit with just 2 Speedlites.
1/1000th second at f/4 using ISO 200 was an unusual exposure for me. I would normally be at 1/200th second as that is the flash sync speed of my 5Dmk2. The wonderful look that f/4 gives this shot would have usually been a boring f/9. There is 25m from the camera to the nearest flash, a 580EX11 with a Honl Speed Strap and a full orange gel, and the backlight was a further 5m beyond the key light.
- You can see the position of the back light rig in this set up shot that I took on an Olympus Pen compact camera.
Here you can see the detail of the rig. I clamped my magic arm onto a 15mm steel fillet and angled the flash towards Natasha. It was a 430EX11 Speedlight connected to a Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 that in turn was connected to a Lovegrove mk1 flash bracket. Although there is a Speed Strap on the flash there was no coloured gel on this back light / kick light.
In the background you can make out some of the six of us Canon shooters preparing to capture the frame. The radio signal from the Mini TT1 on the camera went through about 30m of air then lots of steel (45mm perhaps) before being picked up by a horizontal antenna of the Flex unit. All 6 of us photographers must have bagged about a dozen frames without a single misfire or no fire. That was a big test of the system and it performed with honours.
Although in an earlier studio test I thought there was a 2 stop advantage at high speed sync over the standard Canon system now I’m not so sure. Maybe a 1 stop gain is a better guess. Over 20 or so units have gone from our stock and I expect reports back from other users soon.
This is a close crop of the main image showing the lighting design on Natasha. The white balance on camera was set to 4000k and was fine tweaked in Lightroom.
Please feel free to comment on this shot or the techniques used.
8 Comments Add your own
1. Cris Matthews | August 14th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Hi Damien, great info on this new system. I am already a PocketWizard user and was wondering how well this new kit would integrate with what I already have (2 x Plus2 and a Mulitmax). What interests me most about this is the shutter speed you have been able to use, would I be able to use a new set and have my Plus2 also trigger another light and it all be in time?
Cheers Cris.
2. damien | August 14th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Hi Chris,
I tried the Plus 2 at the high speed sync but alas no trigger. It’s hardly surprising as the Plus 2 is literally just a single trigger with no 2 way communication. It is good up to 1/200th though and this is all you can use with studio flash or battery powered manual flashes anyway.
I’ve done a test shoot with 2 TTL Speedlights triggered by Flex TT5s and 2 Broncolor Mobil packs triggered by Plus 2s all in the same shot at 1/200th with a Mini TT1 on the camera to great effect.
Damien.
3. Cris Matthews | August 15th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Hi Damien,
So even without using TTL I can’t use Hypersync with the Plus II using the MiniTT1 or FlexTT5 as the trigger? That is such a shame if I have understood that correctly.
I may still have to raid the piggy bank, it looks like a great system, can’t wait to see more results of yours.
Cheers
Cris.
4. damien | August 15th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Hi Chris,
Yes you are right, the Plus 2s only do one thing – close a contact momentarily. They do however do this task brilliantly. Hypersync requires a series of flashes to cover the several stages of a shutter action. It requires 2 way communication to do this plus a flash capable of the task. The sync socket on the side of a Speedlight is not connected to the logic systems of the unit. It is just a pair of open contacts that when closed triggers the unit to flash at whatever power has be manually set.
Because the Plus2 communication is literally one single pulse going one way it is a very robust reliable unit.
Adding a MiniTT1 to my pair of Plus 2’s gave me another receiver as I no longer need to have a bulky Plus 2 on the camera working as a transmitter. I now have a Plus 2 for each of my Bron packs. (The Canon version of the MiniTT1 can’t be used on Nikon cameras even if it is to trigger Plus 2s and not to perform TTL communication).
I have also bought a pair of FlexTT5 units and these have mini jack outputs like the Plus 2s and can do everything a Plus 2 can do including trigger a camera as well as perform TTL communication and Hypersync in conjunction with Canon Speedlights.
Damien.
5. Clive Litchfield | August 17th, 2009 at 12:24 am
The suspense is barely tolerable, can’t wait to get my hands on this kit!
Went on a shoot with a model and used the techniques you taught on your urban portraits workshop and stuff I’ve read on here, the results are my best to date, thank you so much it’s a new world.
Clive
6. damien | August 18th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Hi Clive,
We have our second consignment of stock in now and we could dispatch same day
Thanks for your praise and I’m pleased for your photographic accomplishments.
Damien.
7. Shaun | February 10th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Hi there i have a question regarding your speedlight mastery dvd. I see you were shooting with outdoor flash at 1/2000th of sec @ f4. How did you get to sync the camera to the flash gun at that speed. I am using a Canon Mk2
Mini tt1 and pocket wizard plus 2 transciever. Flash gun is Canon 580 ex mark 1.
Look forward to hearing from you
Shaun
8. damien | February 11th, 2010 at 12:16 am
Hi Sean,
The TT1 and TT5 PW system is designed to work with the cameras high speed sync system and it improves on it somewhat. The Plus 2 fails to do the same thing although it does do basic triggering particularly well.
Regards, Damien.
Leave a Comment
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed