Creative and business resources for photographers – ProPhotoNut

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• 1. john shaw  |  August 17th, 2009 at 10:19 am

  Hi Damien,

  I thought the ST-E2 may be redundant when I get my PW system but it appears you can use the St-E2 mounted on a miniTT1 on camera and use the ratio function.

  Does the ST-E2 rartios work out of line of sight e.g. they communictae through the hot shoe contact ??

  Thats great news also will save buying the zone system by PW

  Regards John

• 2. damien  |  August 18th, 2009 at 12:09 am

  Hi John,

  The ST-E2 does connect through the hot shoe and the ratios work through the radio system so this may well be all you need.

  The new Zone unit will allow manual control too and make use of the third, often wasted group C available in the Canon system. – Your call on this one.

  Damien.

• 3. Mark  |  August 18th, 2009 at 9:30 am

  Hi Damien,

  Thanks for all the useful info on the new PWs – I’m getting sorely tempted to go in at the deep end with off-camera flash and your comments aren’t helping my bank balance!

  Just wanted to check whether you meant “ST-E2 on the FlexTT1″ – I thought you were recommending using a Mini on-camera? Or have you changed your mind on that one?

  Cheers,

  Mark

• 4. damien  |  August 19th, 2009 at 12:30 am

  Hi Mark,

  I did mean Mini and not Flex. Well spotted. I’ve changed the body text now.

  We have just received a new batch of the Mini and Flex units and we will soon be announcing an exciting series of PW creative shoot days exclusively for those photographers who have bought PW TTL kit from Lovegrove Consulting. Watch this blog for details.

  Damien.

• 5. Ian Piper  |  August 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

  Hi Damien

  Love your work!

  I have a Canon 5D and a 580EX.

  I do quite a bit of location work (fashion/horses) so was leaning towards getting another 580 and the Pocketwizard Mini TT1 & Flex TT5.

  Do you have any advice/suggestions?

  Kind regards, Ian

• 6. damien  |  August 26th, 2009 at 3:24 pm

  Hi Ian,

  Thanks for your compliments. Indeed I do have some suggestions. I bought myself another Canon 580EX11 on Monday from Simply Electronics on the Amazon marketplace for £285.40 inc special Delivery. It arrived this morning and I’ve just tested the range of TTL triggering with my Flex and Mini combo and it worked well in excess of 30 meters and through my kitchen wall at the same time.

  I recommend you get yourself the 580EX11 a Flex TT5 and a Mini TT1. You will be able to shoot at any shutter speed up to 1/4000th. I was working at 1/4000th at f/4 on ISO100 yesterday in full sun and the flash lit subject lept from the frame. I got goosebumps when I saw the shot on the back of the camera.

  If you have an ST-E2 you can use it in conjunction with the Mini to trigger a second flash optically. Expect to want to get a second Flex eventually.

  Kind regards,

  Damien.

• 7. Ian Piper  |  August 26th, 2009 at 3:39 pm

  Hi Damien

  You’re a star – many thanks!

  And I’ll be booking to come on one of your courses soon – I looked at the 8min promo – very impressive!

  Where did you get your TT5 & TT1 kit from?

  Here are my first forrays in the wonderful world of fashion photography: http://seriousmustard.viewbook.com/fashion#/1/ – now you can see why I …

  1) need to come on one of your courses and
  2) need some better lighting kit!

  Or should I stick to food & horses?

  Kind regards, Ian

• 8. damien  |  August 26th, 2009 at 4:12 pm

  Hi Ian,

  You’ve made a great start to your photographic career. I particularly like the shots of Jenna in the field esp the head shot she is using on her web page.

  You can get your flex and mini from me here and you will get a discount voucher to use against a workshop.

  Why not do fashion, food and horses. Better still combine all three.

  Damien.

• 9. Ian Piper  |  August 26th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

  Hi Damien

  I can see it now …. a naked girl on a fine stallion licking an ice-cream … anyway …. returning to the real world!

  Fab – I’ll order those from you today!

  Cheers, Ian

• 10. Alexander  |  August 31st, 2009 at 8:55 am

  Hello Damien,
  Great Blog, very informative, a bit canon orientated for my liking (I’m a hardcore Nikon supporter) but we’ll overlook that!
  Liam Ramsell introduced me to your site last year and I am looking forward to your next Cork workshop, I wasn’t able to attend the last one sadly.
  For my location shoots I’m currently using two SB900s with the elinchrom skyport as triggers. I love elinchrom but the skyport system has let me down once or twice when working in long distances or awkard positions. I was wondering if you knew if there was a Nikon pocket wizard out or due to come out?
  Also I’d be interested in a 1:1 next time you’re over if you have time? Just a half day on getting more out of my set up? Eimear Barry will model, I’m sure you’ve met her before…
  Thanks again for the blog, it’s great!
  Regards,
  Alexander

• 11. damien  |  August 31st, 2009 at 4:34 pm

  Hi Alexander, I’ll forgive your Nikon brand loyalty. I shoot with both systems and they are as good as each other but in different ways.

  I’m sure I’ll be in Cork in 2010. I love the city and Liam’s hospitality and friendship.

  The Nikon dedicated PW TTL units won’t be out until 2010 but the Pocket Wizard Plus2’s are considered by many to be the most reliable radio unit on the market. I’ve heard great things of the Skyport system so I’m surprised you are having range issues.

  A good friend of mine Martin Plant, (technical director of ProPhotoNut) has both the Skyport and PW Plus2 systems so he will be the best authority on the range and reliability issue.

  I’ll do you a 1:1 half day shoot tutorial using your kit and then if you want why don’t we do a half day creative shot with Eimear afterwards – just for fun.

  Cheers, Damien.

• 12. Alexander  |  August 31st, 2009 at 9:12 pm

  That sounds like a great plan! When we know what’s happening in 2010 we can make a plan!
  Cheers,
  Alex

• 13. martin  |  September 2nd, 2009 at 10:23 pm

  Re skyport vs PW. Generally the skyports are very reliable and trigger over a reasonable range. I haven’t tested the range, but they work in all the circumstances I need them to. For example they will fire the ranger when its outside in the studio courtyard, something that the Bron trigger I tried couldn’t manage. However on the last urban shoot I did I was getting a high proportion of misfires with the skyports. I.e. they simply did not fire. Can only surmise something was interfering with them.

  I like the skyports because they allow me to adjust the power of the ranger from the camera position, and in the studio I can adjust the power of my Elinchrom RX monoblock that is often on the end of a boom.

  But I will always carry a pair of plus2 PWs for circumstances when the skyport won’t cut it. Or if they break (they seem quite fragile to me).

  Worth also mentioning that the only trigger I ever had completely fail was a Plus2. Needed a new circuit board that cost about 80 quid from memory.

  Martin

• 14. Damien Lovegrove's guide &hellip  |  October 18th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

  [...] 2010 (my guesstimate). More information on the Pocket Wizard system and my experiment findings are here and here. Canon 5D mk2 1/200th second f/10 ISO 200 I lit Natasha with just one 580 EX11 on camera. [...]

• 15. Quintin Mills  |  November 3rd, 2009 at 5:36 pm

  I am a South African Photographer shooting weddings, portraits, PR etc and I have been following your site for a while now, excellent work – I in fact bought a PW system to try and light as you do, but I have a question about controlling the speedlight power and what seems like the fact that they just have too much power.
  When I am shooting a wedding – specifically the couple shots have the speedlight on normal power (No compensation) and the camera between 1 and 2 stops down depending on the look I am after.
  But I find that I need to reduce the flash power by at least 1 or 2 stops in camera as it is just too bright.

  I find I have the same issue in the reception for the dances.
  1 on camera 580 exII, one off camera 580 exII and an off camera 550ex all linked with a miniTT1 and Flextt5’s.
  I need to reduce the flash power by at least 1 or 2 stops in camera as it is just too bright which means that the on camera flash has no real power at all.
  I am so confused about it now – it is driving me mad.
  Am I doing something wrong?

  I sometimes think that there is a setting I may have missed as the power seems fine on camera, when I move them off camera they seem much brighter.

  Any advice would be appreciated.

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