Timothy Armes' blog

Yes, I’m grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

I use flash a lot, and the ability to control my remote flashes from my camera is very important. The latest annoucement from the RadioPopper team now has me on the edge of my seat.

Background info

Both Canon and Nikon flash systems have the wonderful ability of allowing the photographer to control up to three groups of remote flashes directly from the master flash on the camera. When working in ETTL mode (for automatic flash control) the systems both work the same way:

1. The photographer presses the shutter button.
2. The camera fires each group in turn in order to measure the baseline flash exposure of each group independantly.
3. The camera calculates the appropriate power output of each group based on the photographer’s choice of settings and the baseline flash exposure just measured.
4. The camera sends each group the actual power level to fire at.
5. The shutter is released and the camera tells all the flashes to fire.

How does the camera communicate with the off-camera flashes? It uses flash! The master flash on the camera sends a coded sequence of very fast flashes that the receiving flashes can understand. All this happens so fast that all we see is one single flash at the moment we press the shutter release.

The technology also offers a major advantage to manual flash shooters in that the power level of each group can be controlled directly from the master flash so there’s no need to keep walking back and forwards to get the flash levels sorted.

The Problem

The technology is very impressive but it has a major disadvantage – the remote flashes have to be able to “see” the main flash, otherwise they can’t receive the coded signals that are sent by the controller. If you want to hide a flash round a corner, for example, you need to find another way of firing it; using radio is the obvious solution.

Radio?

The ability to fire flashes using radio isn’t new, there are many systems on the market at every price point imaginable. The world leader in the professional circuit is PocketWizard, known for their extreme reliability and long firing range. However these systems are only able to fire manual flashes. When they detect the flash signal they tell all the receivers to fire the remote flashes, but they aren’t able to send the coded sequences necessary for controlling the Canon and Nikon flash systems.

Another major drawback to this approach is that these triggers can’t be used to fire a Canon or Nikon flash in high speed mode when the photographer needs to fire above the maximum sync speed.

The Solution

In 2007 my dream of radio controlling my Canon flashes saw a glimmer of light. The RadioPopper was announced. An ingenious system that would attach to a master flash unit and watch for flashes. It was then capable of sending the coded sequence via radio to the receiver units that would literally replay the flashes to the slave flash. The project was very ambitious, but it would ultimately prove to work incredible well – it can even fire remote flashes in high speed mode.

Choosing between PocketWizards and RadioPoppers was not an obvious choice. RadioPoppers would fire my Canon flashes in ETTL mode which would be fantastic, however PocketWizards could be used to fire my Studio strobes and they had a much longer range. Ultimately though I decided that RadioPoppers would be the right choice for me.

The great news for me at the time is was that the first units were to be available in the US at the beginning of 2008 and they would then ship to Europe just three months later! I put my plan to equipe myself with PocketWizards on hold¹ and prepared for the wait.

The Great Depression

Unfortunately things were not to be. The first RadioPoppers available in the states were several months late, and the European version has never seen the light of day due to a technical design issue that has apparently resulted in a neverending round of paperwork.

The Saving Grace (I hope)

However, all is not lost. The latest news from RadioPopper has given me a new glint of hope. The team has learnt a lot from their first design and has now announced a redesigned system with some great new features. The firing range has been expanded to over 500m, the units are smaller and better designed, there are 16 channels to choose from and the transmitter can now also fire both manual flashes and ETTL flashes at the same time (in the same picture). This means that I can now easily use my Canon flashes alongside my Bowens in the studio. With this version the choice between PocketWizard and RadioPopper is obvious – RadioPopper wins hands down for my use.

And the best news of all is that the new version should be available in Europe within just 6 weeks of the US release.

I’m waiting with baited breath. It’s been a very long wait, but it looks like it’ll have been worth it.

1. Actually I bought two so that I could fire my camera remotely [↩]

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 at 8:18 pm and is filed under Gear, Lighting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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