differences between the ebay flash triggers

I'm broke and trying to get a remote flash trigger and understand some have said to go with the ebay triggers. I believe the ones I'm linking to are the right ones but what would be the practical differences between these two for my XSI and a sunpak 383. other then one has 16 channels (would that really make a difference) and the other one has a hot shoe adaptor for the flash itself and a stand that comes with it. Are there better or cheaper ones out there that might be worthwhile looking into

http://cgi.ebay.com …ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcm​dZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com …ZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcm​dZViewItem

also just as a side question for a cheap diffusing reflector would posterboard with some tissue paper glued on work or is that getting a little too jury rigged?

Those look like the Chinese ones my friend had that lasted for about a month and only worked half the time. You get what you pay for...

rx7speed- There are plenty here who have used or use the Cactus Wireless Triggers from Gadget Infinity, I hope to be among them here int eh next month or so when I start putting together my off camera flash lighting kit.

The Advantage of the 16-channel trigger is obviously that it has more possible channels for you to operate on and not have to worry about another wireless trigger using the same channel (if shooting at say a sporting event where there are other photographers who have off camera flashes being fired via wireless trigger), yet this can also be a disadvantage, you have to make sure that both the transmitter and any receiver you use are all set to the same channel (though this also goes for the 4-channel trigger).

The advantages the 4-channel trigger has is the dedicated hot shoe on the receiver which means it is usable for those flashes that dont have a port for a PC adapter, though the 4-channel receiver does have the port for the PC adapter, so you can theoretically use two flashes with one receiver (one on the hot shoe and one plugged into to the receiver with a PC cord), though I dont know if the 2 flash units one receiver option actually works. When I get my wireless trigger this will be the one I will be getting.

As for the diffuser have you tried a white translucent umbrella? You can get them for about $10-$15 or so a piece from B&H, Gadget Infinity (the maker of the wireless Flash triggers you are asking about), Deal Extreme, and probably a couple other online retailers.

Unless you never intend to place your flash units on an umbrella adapter the hotshoe version is not an upside (it gets very precarious when you attempt to use the hotshoe version on an umbrella adapter).

Gadget Infinity does not manufacture these devices. They are a retailer that sells a pile of these things, they sell so many that they have there own branded packaging.

Enjoy ! Lon

the sunpak flash has some sort of sync port on it though it looks like it might be a tight fit and that is my one worry about it. that and what do I do to mount the reciever to prevent it from just dangling there.

looks like hot show to tripod mounts are cheap enough though so that is a +1 for the 16 channel reciever at least as I wouldn't need that stand that comes with it.

I heard that you should stay away from the all-in-one units like the 4 channel that you have there. So I bought the 16 channel version (similar to what you have there, if not exactly the same - got it from user photogearok) and it came yesterday so I have had a chance to check it out. Basically, it would fire that rarely on the hotshoe on my 10D, I have to run it using the pc sync cable, and i just half mount it on the hotshoe so i don't have to hold on to it (but the hotshoe doesn't actually fire it, so it acts more like a cold shoe). Good unit though, not sure why it wouldn't fire from my 10D hotshoe.

As far as misfiring or not triggering, well, I can't talk about misfiring coz it never misfired for me as I was indoors in my house, but it triggered 100% of the time (once I figured out that it wasn't triggering properly from my hotshoe), doesn't miss a beat, so long as your flashes are running on good batteries and charging up quickly.

In terms of running it with a sunpak, I bought a cable from flash zebra, which connects the 6.5mm jack plug of the trigger to the submini plug of the flash. piece of cake. Just wish I could get my sunpak 344d running again so I can test with multi flashes.

One thing I didn't even think about when running remote flashes is the shutter speed vs aperture. It's probably common sense but I had no idea that i had to run slower shutter speeds on higher apertures in order to not get either a black image or half an image (like, bright up the top, black down the bottom), eg. f8.0 with 1/80th shutter speed, as opposed to f2.8 with 1/200th shutter speed... ok I'm totally new to this, but that's a tidbit i wish someone had told me about earlier

Matt

Several years ago I bought a four channel unit similar to the 16 channel unit you show. I don't know how much difference there is between brands, but I'm sure whatever these are, they aren't available by that brand any more. I use mine with studio flash and made up my own connecting cord. Mine have been remarkably reliable and I have certainly gotten my money's worth out of them. The one thing you have to watch is battery level. As the batteries poop out, the range decreases and the usable sync speed slows. On fresh batteries, I can sync at 1/250, but I rarely do so because batteries don't stay fresh forever. As soon as you get them, replace the batteries. Also, if you don't take the batteries out of the receiver when you put them up, they will drain. The transmitter does not have this problem. I think I got lucky as far as reliability. Many people have had problems with them and I had to repair a broken DIP switch early on, but for what I spent two and a half years ago, I sure can't complain. I am anxious for Radio Popper Jr.s to hit the streets, though.