I'm so over Pocket Wizards

I purchased the Flex, Mini and the AC3 for my Canon mkIII and 580EXII speedlight. Everything works great in ETTL mode but I need manual mode! I have spent 2 days trying to get the AC3 to adjust the flash power but no matter what I try it just fires full blast.

I have reset the mini and flex to factory settings, updated firmware, set channels in the PW utility.....so spent with this whole process.

Any ideas? Or should I just scrap them and buy something that is dependable? IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD

Thx

If you want a dependable, versatile and easy to adjust power from the transmitter system, look no further than the Cheetah light system. I too was a pocket wizard user (and I still have 5 or 6 transmitters to use with my studio lights) but once I tried the Cheetah lights, I was hooked.

Jeff. Like I mentioned before in previous posts, with your Mark III, you have the ability to use Group Mode in a Canon 600 EX-RT and ST-E3 Transmitter. system Yes scrap and sell your Flex system and 580 EX-RT and use your cash towards the units mentioned above. You will find that with seamless radio transmission in ETTL or Manual, plus more, your one flash will not be enough. As an early adaptor to the Canon 600 series, they are worth their weight in Gold for me.
It just works with manufacturers support.

Nevermind. Apparently this is a Canon- or model-specific issue. Hopefully the beta firmware suggested in the other thread solves your issue.

our studio started with that setup for shooting quick(8 minute) outdoor senior high school shoots...not reliable. Went to the Radio Poppers route.....no cigar (plagued with problems..pretty embarrassing in front of customers)..... then was happy with the cheap YoungNuo Triggers. It can do manual and ettl hypersync..... amazing. Not sure about durability yet since Senior season just started. But so far, the YoungNuo triggers are performing really well.

i went from PW flex tt5s to yongnuo.

if i was to buy again now id get the phottix odin system, as it also has the ability to control their indra TTL studio lights

Yongnuo triggers rock!

windpig wrote in post #17596011
Yongnuo triggers rock!

I love the YN 622s. They are incredibly reliable and reasonably priced. I use them with speedlights as well as alien bees monolights and have never had a bit of trouble.

Have you tried contacting PW's tech support? The advantage of being a small company is that they reply very quickly. When I was having trouble getting the camera triggering to work they were swift and spot on: turned out the snafu was on my side.

They should be your first line of support, then the forums.

I too went from the PW flex system to Yongnuo 622's due to reliability issues.

If I was starting again tomorrow I'd buy 600ex rt's, canon if I was feeling rich, Yongnuo if I was budget limited.

Batteries for flash guns and triggers creates its own cottage industry, built in receivers would make life so much simpler.

I never use ettl with my pocketwizards. I use them only in manual mode with the ac3.

So are you doing something wrong or is your ac3 or tt1 broken?

It is nice that you open each time a new tread about this but it makes it difficult to me to help you.

I have four Flex TT5s all working flawlessly in manual mode, with my Canon 7D, an AC3, two Canon 580EX IIs and one Canon 580EX.

They have been rock solid, since I read the Pocketwizard manual on January 10, 2011.

NOT even one failure in over four years!

Contact Pocketwizard.com for help!

it's possibly it's your AC3, mine stopped working after 6 months and i bought another one while that one was getting fixed by pw, and so far so good 2 years later, except I sold all my pw stuff recently.