Profoto : significant difference between TTL-C and TTL-N when adjusting power. Your opinion ?

Hi,

I use a Canon body with Profoto’s TTL-C remote. One thing I’ve always hated about this remote (and another one that I tried), is that if one presses too quickly on the power adjustment buttons, the remote won’t register the click. So one has to pace one’s click (quite slowly in my opinion) so that each click registers and sends the instruction to the pack.

Lately, I acquired a TTL-N (Nikon) remote when I bought used a bunch of equipment from another photographer. I was most surprised to see that this remote did not suffer from this problem in any way. Even when rapidly pressing repeatedly on the power adjustment buttons, the remotes registered them all and transmitted the information to the pack.

Both remotes had the latest firmware, but the Nikon was also tried before upgrading and it didn’t make a difference.

I have made a short video that should help make the difference more explicit :

https://www.dropbox.co​m …sujlqa5/IMG_038​1.m4v?dl=0

I have also noticed a few other differences :

- on the TTL-C remotes, each power adjustment change that’s registered results in a blinking red LED, inside the remote, behind the ON/OFF button (you can see it if you are in the dark), but that isn’t the case on the TTL-N.
- the TTL-C and TTL-N make a different noise when reaching the strobes’s power range limits.
- the TTL-C and TTL-N have a difference spring arrangement around the foot. I guess that’s just because of the different ways in which Canon and Nikon hot shoes are arranged ?
- There are several labelling and cosmetic differences.

If you own either a TTL-C or a TTL-N, what is your situation ? Does your remote behave like the two TTL-C I’ve tried (i.e., won’t register power adjustment changes if the clicks on the power adjustment buttons aren’t slowly paced) or the TTL-N in the video above (will register all clicks, even when rapidly pressing the power adjustment buttons) ?

I have never used TTL-C, and I have not seen the issues you mentioned with our TTL-N. But Profoto must have read your post yesterday , since they just released a new TTL-C firmware update yesterday (ver. C2, released Feb. 27, 2017) which, according to their release notes, does the following:

"Faster button press response time, improving
user experience.
• Removed continuous shooting speed limitation
in manual mode."

So upgrade your FW, and you may notice some improvement...

I've seen that yesterday and tested the new firmware. talk about a coïncidence !

The new firmware is a considerable improvement over the previous one, but it only solves 50% of the problem. Now, the TTL-C remote's buttons are as reactive as the TTL-N : every button press translates into an actual output on the remote screen.

However, the ratio system inside the TTL-C remains significantly different from the TTL-N. The latter has very good reliability and responsiveness. My B2 pack is at worst only a couple seconds behind what is displayed on the remote. The TTL-C, on the other hand, is much slower and, worse, far less reliable. The following video is an unrealistic example of what sometimes happens with the TTL-C and the new firmware. I've applied a +5 EV power change in 1/10th increment (something that will never happen in real life, but this makes the problem 100% repeatable). The TTL-C remote gets confused and stops sending information after +3.7 or so EV. It also changes the pack's power setting far slower than the TTL-N :

https://www.dropbox.co​m …3A%20reliabilit​y.MOV?dl=0

Also, there is a problem with the TTL-N remote : it allows users to change the selected group before having transmitted all of the power setting changes instructions to the pack, and that interrupts the transmission. It's therefore possible to apply a +1EV change on the TTL-N remote, then press too rapidly on another group's button, and end up with +0.7 or so EV on the pack. The TTL-C, on the other hand, prevents the user from changing groups before all of the instructions are effectively transmitted. Here's a video :

https://www.dropbox.co​m …change%20proble​m.MOV?dl=0

So on one hand, it's very nice from Profoto to have solved the button input issue, but I'd welcome an improvement in the radio transmission reliability / speed as well.