tharmsen
23rd of October 2009 (Fri), 13:42
I saw this post on another forum:
I was lucky enough to get one of the new Cyber Commanders (http://www.alienbees.com/cybersyncplus.html) and a few battery powered CSRB+ receivers from Alien Bees (White Lightning, Zeus) on Monday. I opened the boxes and was immediately intimidated by the instruction manual. Eventually (two days later) I picked up the instruction sheet and started working my way through the basic setup procedure. Fortunately the instruction sheet was easy to follow and had plenty of pictures (I like pictures!), and after about an hour I had the Cyber Commander working with my AB800. The best part was that in spite of my concerns, once I had finished following the instructions I actually felt I understood how this thing worked!
I want to mention that the Cyber Commander was developed in tandem with the new Einstein monolight system, and the Einstein's will be much easier to set up as they "talk" to the Cyber Commander. What I found interesting is even my six year old Alien Bees can be completely controlled by the new Cyber Commander, and from a conversation I had earlier today with one of the engineers at Paul C. Buff companies, even twenty year old White Lightning's are compatible with the Cyber Commander.
Okay, what does the Cyber Commander do? This unit allows you to set the power levels for up to 16 separate lights from your camera (one light per channel), and then fire them together, wirelessly. It will adjust the modeling lights for each light so they are lighting the scene with the same ratios as the flash output, or it will allow you to keep the modeling lights for all or some of your lights at full power. You also have sixteen separate frequencies available to eliminate any conflicts with other lighting systems. Clearly this is far more control than most of us would ever use, but I know several photographers for whom this is a God send. For me just being able to adjust a main light which is way up on a light stand or a boom without having to pull the light down is a big deal.
The Cyber Commander also works as a flash meter. And not only does it measure the light output for a given setting, it also shows you the t1 flash duration and color temperature for a given power setting. I'm not sure of this, but I suspect the flash duration and color temperature readings are based on typical outputs from the AB light selected at the adjusted power setting rather than actual measurements, but still useful information. The Cyber Commander allows you to specify each light by name (AB1600, Zeus 1200/A or B head, ABR800, etc.) and gives you the parameters of that light on the power adjustment screen. I should also mention that you can fire other brands of lights with the Cyber Commander, but obviously without a digital interface they would have to have their power adjusted manually.
I'm pretty jazzed about the Cyber Commander, and part of this is that once I followed the set up instructions one time, I felt that I actually knew how to use it. I'm not a gear head, so considering how much they control they built into this unit, feeling comfortable after such a short time was important to me. Physically the Cyber Commander is about the same size as the older Pocket Wizards, and the back of the Cyber Commander has a large LCD which displays the various menus. The receiver units are bigger than the Cyber Sync receivers, but still pretty compact. The Cyber Commander sells for $179.95, and each CSRB+ receiver is price at $89.95. The units are now shipping to those who placed pre orders, and should be available to anyone else who wishes to purchase them.
Now I really am jonesing for the Einstein's!
Fish
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=517300
It says they're shipping at the end!
I was lucky enough to get one of the new Cyber Commanders (http://www.alienbees.com/cybersyncplus.html) and a few battery powered CSRB+ receivers from Alien Bees (White Lightning, Zeus) on Monday. I opened the boxes and was immediately intimidated by the instruction manual. Eventually (two days later) I picked up the instruction sheet and started working my way through the basic setup procedure. Fortunately the instruction sheet was easy to follow and had plenty of pictures (I like pictures!), and after about an hour I had the Cyber Commander working with my AB800. The best part was that in spite of my concerns, once I had finished following the instructions I actually felt I understood how this thing worked!
I want to mention that the Cyber Commander was developed in tandem with the new Einstein monolight system, and the Einstein's will be much easier to set up as they "talk" to the Cyber Commander. What I found interesting is even my six year old Alien Bees can be completely controlled by the new Cyber Commander, and from a conversation I had earlier today with one of the engineers at Paul C. Buff companies, even twenty year old White Lightning's are compatible with the Cyber Commander.
Okay, what does the Cyber Commander do? This unit allows you to set the power levels for up to 16 separate lights from your camera (one light per channel), and then fire them together, wirelessly. It will adjust the modeling lights for each light so they are lighting the scene with the same ratios as the flash output, or it will allow you to keep the modeling lights for all or some of your lights at full power. You also have sixteen separate frequencies available to eliminate any conflicts with other lighting systems. Clearly this is far more control than most of us would ever use, but I know several photographers for whom this is a God send. For me just being able to adjust a main light which is way up on a light stand or a boom without having to pull the light down is a big deal.
The Cyber Commander also works as a flash meter. And not only does it measure the light output for a given setting, it also shows you the t1 flash duration and color temperature for a given power setting. I'm not sure of this, but I suspect the flash duration and color temperature readings are based on typical outputs from the AB light selected at the adjusted power setting rather than actual measurements, but still useful information. The Cyber Commander allows you to specify each light by name (AB1600, Zeus 1200/A or B head, ABR800, etc.) and gives you the parameters of that light on the power adjustment screen. I should also mention that you can fire other brands of lights with the Cyber Commander, but obviously without a digital interface they would have to have their power adjusted manually.
I'm pretty jazzed about the Cyber Commander, and part of this is that once I followed the set up instructions one time, I felt that I actually knew how to use it. I'm not a gear head, so considering how much they control they built into this unit, feeling comfortable after such a short time was important to me. Physically the Cyber Commander is about the same size as the older Pocket Wizards, and the back of the Cyber Commander has a large LCD which displays the various menus. The receiver units are bigger than the Cyber Sync receivers, but still pretty compact. The Cyber Commander sells for $179.95, and each CSRB+ receiver is price at $89.95. The units are now shipping to those who placed pre orders, and should be available to anyone else who wishes to purchase them.
Now I really am jonesing for the Einstein's!
Fish
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=517300
It says they're shipping at the end!