Questions, questions, and more questions!

Ok so I have been strobing for a bit over a year now with some old crappy eBay flash triggers. About a month ago I decided it was time to invest in some new triggers and these old ones were beginning to drive me insane with their horrible quality. I went into my local store and inquired about what PocketWizard had available through them and what could potentially be my best bet for what I needed them for. Somehow the outcome was that I would be going home with three PLUSII PocketWizard Transceivers and two safe-syncs to fire both of my 430's off camera. A couple of weeks later I began noticing that the inconvenience of not having the option to maintain my on-camera flash in a multi strobe set-up, and it became annoying. I decided to go into the store and exchange one of the PLUSII transceivers for a FlexTT1 unit. Instantly I could tell this was a good decision as it worked great in sync with my PLUSII, as well as maintaining the on-camera flash.

Now I know people will say, but but but but you could have just taken the 1 transceiver off the hotshoe, and plugged it in through PC port and used the hot-shoe....but personally, I hated having the stupid thing dangling off the camera hanging from the PC jack, and I was not ready to start shooting with a bracket just to hold the PLUSII off camera. So with this being said I went home an apparently "happy" customer. A couple more weeks went by and I began doing more research on the Flex system in it's entirety. Learned about the hypersync capabilities, AC3 zone controller adapter, TTL capabilities, and many other conveniences that I had not been informed about prior to my purchase.


Today I decided that I had made completely the wrong decision by going with the PLUSII system at all as the only obvious convenience that it offered me was having the option of 4 zone split apposed to the 3 zone split offered by the Flex system. I went into the store I deal with all the time, and spoke with my friend. He was nice enough to be able to exchange my remaining two PLUSII transceivers, for two FlexTT5 units that they ordered in for me. I feel as though I had averted a huge upset for myself in the future with plans of expansion of my strobe set-up with increased control.


I feel as though the best metaphor I could give would be this.....I purchase the cadillac of remote triggers, but I had gotten the 2005 model for the same price as the 2010 would have been with WAY more features. (I guess I should mention that the difference in price is incredibly minimal between the two systems. 30$ per transceiver compared to TT5 unit)

This brings me to the point of my enourmous spcheel where I start asking the questions. I have numbered them below as I am willing to take anyones input on what the have to say on the matter.

Some info on what I need the triggers for (To avoid the whole, "Why is there noise in my images" without posting an example of the problem to inform people of what they're answering about)

My plan is two expand my set-up to a 3 strobe, off-camera capable system. I currently own 2x430EXII's and one Vivitar 285. I plan on replacing the Vivitar dinosaur (Although an AWESOME flash gun) with a new 580EXII unit. I plan to use my strobe set-up for a HUGE variety of things including everything from still life such as my automotive work, to wedding, portrait, and modeling photography. I need to have the flexibility be the same indoors as it is to use it outdoors. I need the ability to be able to strobe at sync speeds above the standard 200 or 250th of a second of most systems. I want hastle free operation, with little to no random misfires, and on point triggering operation when they need to fire. My questions are as follows:

1. In your opinion did I make the right decision in making the change? If there is more info you need to know about something specific I'd be more than happy to elaborate on my situation.

2. Are any of the facts I had learned about the Flex system vs. the PLUSII system incorrect? If so, why and what were they?

3. Was I wrong in thinking that the only clear advantage of the PLUSII system over the Flex system is the 30$ saved, and additional 2 dedicated channels to operate with?

4. Do you use either the Flex or PLUSII system yourself? If so, how do you like it, and what things do you NOT like about it?

5. Is it true that using my MiniTT1 with the TT5's will allow me to push sync speeds of up to 1/8000th seemlessly?!?!?

6. Was I correct in thinking that since my 430EXIIs do not have PC input jacks (Damn you canon, I still hate you for this) that I have now saved myself from needed to use safesyncs as the Flex system is a "hot Shoe" style integration of the flash and transciever?

7. Should I be looking at replacing my MiniTT1 with just another straight TT5 unit to complete my system? What limitations am I imposing on myself by using the Mini apposed to the TT5?.....I still have the option to exchange the TT1 for yet another TT5 unit, this is the reason I ask.


This is my slightly odd-ball question of the bunch.

8. Ok so say I go out and buy my 580II to complete my 3 strobe set up and I end up using my TT1 on camera, then remotely trigger the 3 strobe guns with matching TT5 units, will I still be able to remotely control the output power of my 430EXII through my 580EXII? Or will the PW system override the information control from the 580 to the 430s due to the fact that it's no longer using it's IR system?.....or is it due to the live TTL monitoring system availability. Basically I want to know if I will be able to stand in one spot (At my 580 of course) and remotely control power output on my 430s without having to buy the AC3 zone control unit to manipulate power output through the Flex system itself?

Alright so I know in that whole thing there were run-on sentences, comma splicing, misspelled words, and whatever else the internet grammar police may ding me for but I think I translated my questions properly. I'm sorry for such a long read but I wanted to be very thorough in my approach as it seems lack of proper information now that I am investing in professional equipment can be costly in the end if you make the wrong choices early on in building your kit.

Thanks in advance, and feel free to only answer certain questions if you know them. I am looking for different opinions also so don't feel as though if someone answered the question you were going to respond to that I no longer want to hear you input, I do!

87 views and not a SINGLE answer???????.....wow, this is very unlike this forum I'm rather disappointed I laid out such a thorough post.....

Your post is a bit hard to read. Sort of like a conversation where a teenage girl talks for 10 minutes without taking a breath. I found myself zoning off in the middle of the first paragraph 3 times. It would help if you could break up that huge block of text into a couple of paragraphs.

gonzogolf wrote in post #12283302
Your post is a bit hard to read. Sort of like a conversation where a teenage girl talks for 10 minutes without taking a breath. I found myself zoning off in the middle of the first paragraph 3 times. It would help if you could break up that huge block of text into a couple of paragraphs.

That's called....you don't like reading. Even if you wanted nothing to do with reading the longer part, there is 7 pretty clearly laid out questions there....

The funny thing is that if I would have just posted the 7 questions by themselves with no background information of my situation I would have gotten a bunch of people saying....."Well how are we supposed to answer you with no information about what you need it for!"

What do you mean by not being able to maintain your OCF in a multi strobe setup?

There broke it up a bit for you, but the problem is there was a reason why the first paragraph was large.....due to the unfortunate rules of English and grammar when writing, there was no intelligent ways to break it apart.

....frankly I think blaming the way to post was typed is a slight cop-out of actually answering a question.

TWOLITREmedia wrote in post #12283321
That's called....you don't like reading. Even if you wanted nothing to do with reading the longer part, there is 7 pretty clearly laid out questions there....

The funny thing is that if I would have just posted the 7 questions by themselves with no background information of my situation I would have gotten a bunch of people saying....."Well how are we supposed to answer you with no information about what you need it for!"

Seiously, I dont like reading? You are the one asking for help, and I'm trying to make sense of your stream of consciousness gibberish to understand your plight. So don't take a shot at me for your failings.

gonzogolf wrote in post #12283329
What do you mean by not being able to maintain your OCF in a multi strobe setup?

I think your honestly nit picking at quite annoying things and side-stepping the real questions I'm asking.

This is pretty straight forward, I wanted to maintain OCF with a multi-strobe set-up without needing to hang a PLUSII receiver off the side of my camera.....AKA, I could not just use the PLUSII on the hot shoe as this would disable the use of OCF....not sure how this could confuse you? The TT5 units maintain a hot-shoe on the transceiver.

OCF is generally used to mean off camera flash, do you mean something else?

gonzogolf wrote in post #12283337
Seiously, I dont like reading? You are the one asking for help, and I'm trying to make sense of your stream of consciousness gibberish to understand your plight. So don't take a shot at me for your failings.

Take a shot at you for my failings?.....right. I just re-read my entire post, and I really don't see how you have trouble understanding it but I apologize if you can't. I'd rather not have you troll this post and state what parts of the original post you don't like grammatically, meanwhile not answering a single question I had. Thanks a lot man

First legit question you had...

gonzogolf wrote in post #12283364
OCF is generally used to mean off camera flash, do you mean something else?

I mean hot-shoe mounted, aka "On-Camera Flash" I should have specified, sorry.

Honestly, I'm trying to make sense of this. If you look at my history, I'm not a troll. But be honest with yourself, its been two days and nobody else has tackled this.

gonzogolf wrote in post #12283383
Honestly, I'm trying to make sense of this. If you look at my history, I'm not a troll. But be honest with yourself, its been two days and nobody else has tackled this.

Listen....I don't think your a troll at all. With that being said, it's still considered "trolling" by coming on to a thread and nit-picking about grammar and sentence structure....when honestly I have seen people on these forums who can barely speak English (let alone type it) and still get their questions answered.

Obviously there is something with the format of my questions or something, I dunno. At this point I give up, I'll just hope for the best with the change I made to the Flex system and stop asking questions.

Maybe next time I'll just post like some do on this forum.....

"Hi, is the PocketWizard Flex system good?"

The only reason I was commenting on the sentence structure is your second post wondering why nobody had responded. I still dont understand the part about OCF and I think that might be the sticking point for others. Good luck getting answers. As for the flex system, if you need ETTL its worth it, otherwise its a pretty expensive trigger system if you one are firing manual flashes.

gonzogolf wrote in post #12283470
The only reason I was commenting on the sentence structure is your second post wondering why nobody had responded. I still dont understand the part about OCF and I think that might be the sticking point for others. Good luck getting answers. As for the flex system, if you need ETTL its worth it, otherwise its a pretty expensive trigger system if you one are firing manual flashes.

I corrected the "OCF" part, all I was referring to was maintaing ON CAMERA FLASH capabilities. Have you used the PW PLUSII system? If you have you will know you have two options to use it as a sending unit, either mount it on the hot shoe of your camera (Removing the ability to mount a flash on your hot-shoe obviousely) OR you can plug it in to the PC port on the side of your body, with a PC cable. Problem with this was that you had to either hang the transciever off your wrist, or you could mount it on a strobe bracket.

I've used the PWII's a bit and the cybersync system which is essentially the same in terms of function and I understand you have the option to use them from the sync port or the hotshoe. I've never felt any need to use the on board flash in a remote setup though as its usually contributing light from the last place that I want it, right on the camera.