Wireless Flash Trigger
Once you take your speedlights out for a walk and shoot photos outside, even if you don’t go further than your own garden, then you will feel the need for wireless flash triggers such as radio remotes. Yes, they open up a whole new world of lighting. But these hot babies also might burn a hole into your wallet. Before you reach really deeeeeeep into your “Pocket“ and invest in “Wizards” of the well known brands you should have a look at the alternatives. You really should.
Those cameras on the lower end of the scale come with low energy built in flash units.
However, some gear such as the high end digital SLR cameras can accommodate external flash units advanced in their abilities to provide excellent lighting in complicated situations.
The flash units of today are highly developed technology devices. The flash and camera are automatically synchronized using an electronic flash tube taking all of the pressure off of the photographer.
Digital cameras today can determine themselves if a flash is necessary, can set their own intensity and other parameters and can trigger the flash at the precise tine the shutter is opened.
I learned this in an expensive way. Here’s what happened: One year ago I purchased a set of cutting edge radio triggers with truly amazing features. It was a set of 5 Neewer Wireless STUDIO Flash TRIGGER. I bought them only to find out that they are useless for my photography. They turned out to be horribly unreliable and thanks to their design (and the unadvertised fact that you have to put an extra 3cm radio noise cancelling foot underneath the speedlight) they can’t be used with lightformers.
I contacted the manufacturer which is Neewer. They refused to fix their design flaws. Having imported the product to Germany I could not even get back my money. Their local service here in Germany even refused to answer any questions. However, they did have the time to point out to me that importing such radios to Germany was not exactly legal. Thanks guys, why not suing me for buying your shit product?
I learned from that. Now I’m more critical and I buy only from dealers that are happy to take back their products if it turns out that these products fail in the field.
The field, yes, that’s also the stage for the little flick I have for you in this post. I filmed a couple of tricks that I do with my NEW wireless flash triggers, the Phottix Odin TTL Wireless Flash Trigger. Most of it can be done with pretty much any radio remote trigger. That’s why I’m sure there will be some tips, takeaways and inspiration in there for you when you see me playing around with the new Phottix Odin.
Since I did not use the Phottix Odin before, this video also documents my first impression of this gadget. With that said, here’s how you use radio remote triggers to make the light of your speedlights rock.
How to setup your camera and speedlights? Have a look at some examples from the lighting diagrams I posted below.
Try it out yourself and post the links to your results over here in the comments section.
If you have additional cool idea for using wireless flash triggers please post them in the comments. If possible, add a link to examples. Or if you saw some cool photos using remote flashes online, let all of us know, post it into a comment.
I wish you good light!
