RadioPoppers: Not Just For Wireless TTL
I had had lunch with Kevin King on Friday in Phoenix and got to play with a set of RadioPoppers. Given that I am not really much of a wireless TTL guy, I did not think that I would be that interested. (For myself, anyway.) But I am most definitely gonna be getting a set. And I'll bet a lot of other Pocket Wizard-toting pro shooters will be, too.
More after the jump.
_______
First of all, you will remember that many people said that the RadioPoppers could not be real because the technological problems were too great to solve. Short answer is, they were almost right.
But they did not count on the tenacity of Kevin King. I know just enough about electronics to be dangerous, and listening to Kevin tick off all of the reasons this could not be done -- and how he solved each of them -- was amazing. Suffice to say, do not ever tell this guy he can't do something.
They definitely work. But since I use Nikon's CLS in the TTL mode very infrequently, I did not think I would be interested in a set for myself. Until I thought about something else my Nikon D300 can do wirelessly at close range: Ultra high-speed sync.
To me, synching a flash over the hybrid IR/RF RadioPopper at a 1/8000th of a second seemed like much more of a challenge than merely running TTL through the new RF range extenders. But when I asked Kevin about that feature, he didn't even blink.
No problem, he said.
(Okay, now I am interested.)
The Achilles heel of FP (focal plane, high-speed) synching systems is the flash-to-subject range limitation. As the shutter speeds move up the ladder, you get less and less range out of your flash, due to the fact that the slitted shutter (at high speeds) is not catching much of the energy put out by the flash.So, your flashing range at 1/4000th of a sec is far less than the range at, say, 1/500th of a sec. Combine this with the range limitations of straight CLS-type systems, and you can get squeezed on each end.
But if you can move your flashes close to your subject and extend the wireless communication range of your high-speed FP flash, you buy yourself lots more flexibility in your shooting. Think telephoto portraits shot wide open at 1/4000th of a sec to blow out the background focus -- yet still lit with a nearby flash, for instance.
This means you could shoot outdoor portraits with your flattering tele at noon on a sunny day with both controlled light and a nice, soft background.
We were both pressed for time, so didn't really have time to play much. But as a range test, the photo above was shot with high-speed FP flash at a 1/2000th of a second with a D300 at over 100 feet with a telephoto lens.
I was shooting straight TTL wireless flash at about 250-300 feet away earlier, too. The RadioPoppers were working just fine. And if you exceed your range, your transmitter will tell you. It has a "link status" light that tells you when everything is hunky-dory -- and when it is not.
I'll give up my Pocket Wizards when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers. But I'll be making room in my bag for a set of RadioPoppers, too. Congrats to Kevin for pulling off an engineering feat to make any DIY'er proud.
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by David, at 12:00 AM.
49 Comments:
I'll be very interested to see for myself how well these units actually work.
The idea has been thought of before, and the Achilles' heel has always been timing. The manufacturers' wireless TTL systems communicate information via very precisely timed control pulses emitted from the flash units themselves, and anything that adds any amount of delay to this timing would seem likely to reduce accuracy. It's hard to imagine how an add-on system could avoid introducing at least a small amount of delay.
Agreed -- that was certainly a big hurdle. And Kevin's engineered solution for the timing intricacies was absolute genius.
I don't think this has been mentioned anywhere, but I asked Kevin where these are made (which is important to some people, including me), and they're MADE IN USA! Two big thumbs up, Kevin!!
You know I'm all over these as soon as I can be. I think increasing range of CLS (or Canon) will have a profound impact on how people view what the advanced features (such as FP)can do for them.
I'll be brief here, but using TTL in an environment where lighting changes such as the last 15 minutes of daylight let's you shoot more frames with less adjusting of your remote flash units. More frames shot is always better.
I don't understand your comment about flash range going down as the shutter speed increases. Even at 1/8000th of a second, that's enough time for the camera to send a signal to the flash, the flash to go for a cup of coffee and think about how it wants to respond, get back, flash, send light to the subject and have that light bounce back to the sensor.
I assume that I'm just missing some basic concept that destroys that theory, and if so, perhaps you could devote some future post to illuminating the issue.
(PS: it seems you want "ladder" where you wrote "latter")
Thanks,
Jeffrey
David said...
Agreed -- that was certainly a big hurdle. And Kevin's engineered solution for the timing intricacies was absolute genius.
oh. em. gee.
he's mad a flux capacitor the size of a cr2025, and they use time travel, don't they?!!!
now.. when's pentax and sony support coming?
@Jeffrey
That would be true, if there was an electronic shutter instead of a mechanical shutter
heres a diagram
when high speed sync isn't on, the shutter looks like this
|------|
| ----|
| --|
| |
| | *flash*
| |
|-- |
|---- |
|------|
But when HSS is on, it looks like this
|------|
| ----|*flash*
|-- --|*flash*
|---- |*flash*
|------|
So essentially, the HSS has to flash multiple times when the sync speed is too high, reducing the overall power
I know for sure that there has been an article on strobist about high speed sync flashes though.
I think the biggest hurdle is reliability, and I mean proven reliability in the field.
The reason that I LOVE my pocket wizard setup is that I *KNOW* it will fire every time, if the radio poppers can be proven to do the same, and gain a sync port I could be very tempted to add some...
Otherwise I'll stick with my D70 which syncs with *full power* flashes all the way to 1/3200 with Pocketwizards, without any other shenanegins...
Any new toy is always interesting though and if nothing else should push PW to innovate...
David,
Can you cross-breed TTL, i.e. will TTL work with your G9 + SB800s?
http://www.bioinitiative.org/
for more info about RF effects on the human body - not a light read, but neither is a TTL manual...
Jeffery, the flash "ranges" becomes smaller since when in FP mode the flash cannot "flash" instead it blinks at 50hz (Am I correct?) or so in order to get the entire frame lit. Because when you use a shutter speed faster than the cameras own sync speed the shutter doesn't open and close, instead it forms a slit that glides over the frame at the sync speed so that each part of the frame is exposed at 1/4000th of a second. For the flash to keep up it needs to pulse at 50hz for the sync speed, this decreases range.
I hope my explanation was understandable.
Link light?
Brilliant.
I wanna play.
OK, I want a few. Now, "Please, Mr. Bank Manager, can I have some more..." :-)
David,
Did you talk about RadioPopper Jr.s?
They seem like a perfect replacement for PowertyWizards (eBay Cheapos) and low cost viable alternatives to PocketWizards.
Does anyone have or know where one could find flash duration charts for speedlights? The whole sync speed to flash output thing is really interesting and I'd love to see some real numbers. Think about it, if you have to crank up the power because of the shutter diminishing the relative exposure, and the flash duration might extend due to requesting more power there has to be an optimum power setting for elevated sync speeds. Also what about color temp changes? I know on a lot of lower end strobes the color temp can change quite dramatically from low to high power. Thanks for the post.
Just came across a write-up on this post, in Wired - good job Dave! here
These things are not compatible with PW's are they?
I think the features are great and this is a very exciting product but unless you are starting from scratch you are pretty much relegating your PW's to the bag, right?
Wouldn't it be great if Poppers could be integrated into a PW system? Is that on the table?
-MKruter
I'm surprised how little talk there's been about another very important feature of RadioPoppers vs Pocket Wizards. HSS is great and having the option of reliable wireless TTL is wonderful in fast-moving situations, but one of the best advantages for me is how you can now have total manual control over your slave flashes via the on-camera master (without having to worry about line of sight). Imagine shooting with an assistant or with a light stand and not having to tell your assistant anything or bring the stand down every time you want to change the power setting on your slave flash? Now imagine the possibility of having 3 wireless flashes on light stands around a reception hall on separate Groups (A, B and C) and being able to individually adjust their power settings from 1/1 to 1/128, all from the comfort of your on-camera master flash!
I can't wait to get my hands on these things!
What isn't explicitly stated is that this system still relies on using the camera manufacturer's infrared system. You need either a flash on camera with an infrared transmitter, or you need the camera maker's dedicated infrared transmitter (Nikon SU-800 or Canon ST-E2).
This is still a terrific piece of development. It breaks the limits of distance and line-of-sight imposed by the camera manufacturer systems, and it breaks the lack of TTL of the PocketWizard system. It is a very good compromise.
The PocketWizard system wins the distance race (up to 1600 feet vs up to 300 ft for RadioPopper), but it doesn't deliver the TTL feature needed in a constantly moving sets with unpredictable lighting.
@Michael Moore.
Amen Brother.
You took the words right out of my mouth (...dang, I really wanted to say it first). I don't have an assistant and I don't like running around adjusting my flashes manually. I don't use TTL much but I do use CLS to change my SB-600/800 power output all the time.
If these things work in the wild like they seem to be working for the lucky few who have played with them then I think we'll have to find Mr. King on his yacht for future interviews.
Cheers,
Sportrait
David,
I ran across this interesting article posted to SlashDot which might be of interest to you or other readers; research on software to analyse light sources in images to identify tampering.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20423/?a=f
Best Regards,
Doug
I almost always shoot manual flash, myself, but I've gotten very addicted to the SU-800's ability to adjust the output from the camera. I look forward to keeping the PW's in the bag for small-light work.
Here is what I found out, for those interested in something slightly technical:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/616017/0
try scrolling down about half way, he gets to the flash duration issues with a Canon 580. Looks like 1/2000th of a second at 1/4 power seems like the most bang for your buck. Also,apparently color temp is NOT an issue with speedlights on ttl the unit factors that in.
Back to the lab!
@Walter, you are incorrect.
The transmitter end does need a flash unit to fire but the transmitter actually reads the electromagnetic pulses from the flash unit, not IR emissions. The transmitter converts the pulses and transmits the TTL info by RF to the receiver. The Receiver converts the RF signal to a light output that is connected with a fiber optic lead connected to the remote flash IR sensor to communicate the settings and trigger the flash.
I can't wait to see
a) a real shipment date
b) end customer pricing
So far this still is all vaporware.
The idea of extending CLS to non-line -of-sight to me is just BRILLIANT. But now stop teasing and get them to us. Please?
Dirk
The manual control is incredibly appealing, though there is one really big downside with the radio popper design, maybe it can be addressed in v2 (please....):
Multi-shooter setups aren't practical. Linking and unlinking from the poppers to take turns just won't work. (long sigh...)
Even still, we'll be on the backorder list.
Hi David,
I'm new to flash photography--just trying to learn it so far with my Nikon SB-800, first umbrella, etc.
The Poppers sound very interesting. Can you compare them to the Elinchrom Skyports? Do they do the same thing?
Thank you for any guidance,
Jim
I wonder how long it's going to be before Nikon is knocking on their door with a big bag of money!
Yep, I'll be picking up 4 of these.
Here's a link straight to some shots taken using the system, some at high sync: http://www.flickr.com/photos/evolutionfotos/sets/72157603980655140/
@Brian HK .. from their website
"The light signal is picked up via a piece of fiber optic cable and reflected to a sensor inside the RadioPopper. It works in reverse on the opposite end."
I'm not an electronic engineer or physicist, but this sounds to me like it works off optical light, not electromagnetic signals. We could be on the same page, just thinking differently about it.
This sounds great, but if you're a Nikon CLS user planning on using your pop-up flash as commander (which the D70/80/200/300 all offer) it appears we are going to have to buy yet another SB-800 or SU-800 ($300+) to make it work.
They say on their blog that they never intended this to be used with the pop-up flash, but you can mount it on top of your pop-up flash (!) if you can find something to put under the pop-up to keep it from closing! I would love to see that set-up.
This high-speed sync is exactly the reason I might forget PWs and get some RadioPoppers when they come out.
Yeah, I know I might not get the reliability of PWs, but I'm guessing I'll still get better reliability than my Poverty Wizards.
Does this only apply to camera's with the mechanical shutter? Or can the "other" cameras handle this high sync thing with good results. I have a canon 20D. Forgive my ignorance if this sounds like a silly question. I do realize the 20D has high-sync capabilities but I have never been impressed.
@ Dirk
I know they sound too good to be true, but these things are hardly vaporware. They have working models already and a number of people have used them with success. They're only waiting for FCC certification before they can release them to the general public.
@ Walter
That must be an old excerpt from the website. The original design did use a fiber optic cable on the transmitter unit to pick up the light pulses, but they recently switched to a new design that picks up the electromagnetic fluctuations without the need for the cable (a stroke of genius!).
Another thing I forgot to mention is that when using E-TTL mode on the Canon flashes (maybe it's the same with Nikon too), the power level can go much lower than the 1/128 manual power setting (a little over 3 stops lower or 1/1024 in my testing). This makes it much easier to balance with low ambient lighting without the need for an ND filter on the flash and it helps to simulate the "video light look" by not overpowering the ambient.
Hey Tripp
You've got to understand that Kevin is a Canon shooter. And at least at the start his focus was the Canon system. It just turned out that the Nikon CLS was a little easier to get things working on. I'm in the same boat as you, I'm a Minolta / Sony shooter and at present my 5600HS doesn't work as a controller when attached to the body. Its added some nice capability because I know the flash will fire when attached to the body all I have to do is slide it on, but it would be nice to have it as a controller to get extended range and more flexibility than I have with the popup flash.
This looks like a such valuable product; TTL is a photojournalist's best friend! My question is about durability; What type of material goes into the radio poppers? Are they gasket sealed to protect from foul weather/sand/dust? I love the idea of being able to shoot TTL at greater distances quickly, but I would like to know if they can take the daily beat-down that I put my equipment through,
-Ken
www.KenLopezPhoto.com
@Welter Rowe
From their blog dates 12 Feb 2008:
“Look Ma! No wires!”
February 12th, 2008 by Kevin
Upon first glance at the product images of the P1 Transmitter - you’ll notice something is missing. It’s missing the light sensing fiber-optic we’ve been talking about. In fact, it’s got no light sensor at all.
Eh?
That’s right. This is a little surprise we’ve been cooking up since early December and the reason for some of our production delay and the early re-design.
Not only does the P1 transmitter send ETTL via radio, but it does so with no electrical connections, wires, adaptors, or even a light sensor connected to the master flash. Imagine that.
So how *does* it work then?
The new and improved P1 actually reads the brief magnetic pulse produced by the master flash as it blinks it’s optical signal. The little lightning bolt generated inside the master flash, ST-E2, whatever - becomes a little electro-magnet for a few billionths of a second. Hidden neatly inside the little black P1 Transmitter box is a sensor much like a guitar pickup which reads these magnetic spikes and serves as the signal input for the system.
The P1 Transmitter is quite simply placed on top of the master unit with some industrial Velcro. No additional connections are required. Just power it on, and you’ve got radio enabled ETTL / iTTL.
As long as the transmitter is installed correctly on the master flash, you can shoot as you always have - including the use of lighting modifiers and diffusers - and without the concern of fowling and interference of a pickup of any kind.
"wonder how long it's going to be before Nikon is knocking on their door with a big bag of money!"
I can only hope Nikon will buy out Radio Popper. That has been my dream that Nikon build something like this into the SB800. Sure it would cost more, but I'm a Nikon guy and would pay the extra. I love the ability to adjust multiple remote flashes from the master, but outoors CLS is not reliable enough to use so I end up using remotes.
I'm a bit nervous about using the RP and durability, I'm mostly a sports shooter and am often quickly setting up and tearing down equipment, out in fields, woods, etc. hand holding flashes, etc - meaning I handle and move my equipment all too much - I think the fiberoptic will be in the way for how I shoot and I am sure I would break one a day just in hand holding flash heads.
They seem great for studio work or set it and forget it situations.
Still I may try some out!
www.MLKimages.com
"wonder how long it's going to be before Nikon is knocking on their door with a big bag of money!"
I can only hope Nikon will buy out Radio Popper. That has been my dream that Nikon build something like this into the SB800. Sure it would cost more, but I'm a Nikon guy and would pay the extra. I love the ability to adjust multiple remote flashes from the master, but outoors CLS is not reliable enough to use so I end up using remotes.
I'm a bit nervous about using the RP and durability, I'm mostly a sports shooter and am often quickly setting up and tearing down equipment, out in fields, woods, etc. hand holding flashes, etc - meaning I handle and move my equipment all too much - I think the fiberoptic will be in the way for how I shoot and I am sure I would break one a day just in hand holding flash heads.
They seem great for studio work or set it and forget it situations.
Still I may try some out!
www.MLKimages.com
@kenneth:
Yes I fully realize these things were designed from a Canon-centric point of view. Which is why it seems silly that they're not taking that one extra step to design some sort of foot to go into the hotshoe...as many obstacles as they've overcome so far, this would be so easy! Not to start a Nikon/Canon debate, as I know there are MANY areas where Canon leads Nikon, but Nikon flash system is simply better than Canon's. And one of those reasons is that you can command flashes with the pop-up.
This is a make or break issue with me. I'm not going to "jerry-rig" it to sit on top of my pop-up flash, and I'm not going to spend an extra $315+ for a SB-800 or SU-800 on top of the inital cost for the RP's, so I hope you guys are listening. Seems silly to come so far and yet not solve this one easily solvable problem!
Hey Strobist, I have quickly become addicted to your site and I am trying to addict many of my other south of the border friends(rio de janeiro brazil) as well. One thing I haven´t seen here yet is the possibility of using strobes for digital double exposures. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhani_b/2341120574/
here is a flick I took, a single 5 second exposure using two flashes to create a double exposure, sure was easier with film, but the teqhnique is pure strobist fun.
Thank you again for so much valuable information.
sincerely
Dhani Accioly Borges
First off, I think these are remarkably cool and the idea of eliminating line-of-sight from TTL (and the other mentioned benefits) is fantastic.
BUT, for those of us who have been using our camera's built-in flash (i.e., D70) to trigger a couple of off camera flashes, the fact that we need to stick a flash on the body takes us one step backward. If I use the Radiopopper, I reduce my SB800 to an on-camera master rather than take advantage of it being off-camera? Excuses to buy another speedlight are always welcome, and maybe I was ignorant about how the poppers pull off TTL, but I was disappointed to learn I'll have to lock a flash down on the camera hotshoe. Can anyone explain why this isn't annoying or is only a minor nuisance given all the benefits?
Yeah. I want them. PW, you're dead.
I would love to have some of these, but i'm in Brazil and thats a problem right now....too bad huh.
That system really impresses me by doing something so sophisticated at a very reasonably price...
congrats to the people that made it happen...
Couldn't squeeze some hint at a release date out of him?
After having read all the above posts, it seems that to use the poppers requires a complete infra-red system - either on on-camera strobe or infra-red transmitter (?)(for Canon, anyway). So the poppers only solve the distance and line-of-sight problems of infra-red ETTL?
Hi,
Olympus (E-3 and soon the e-510) have a CLS like feature on their flash commander for the FL-50R...
does anyone know if this will work for the Olympus FL-50R flashes then?
Thanks for any help.
-Joe
hi.....
im with pentax and so no luck, but on paper it looks very very promissing. im also a lonley shooter and no assi to change flashs.
well, i i were rich i would go with the quantums, they do wireless ttl, u can controll flash from the cam or the master, but: quantums are huge and quite out of my league, me have no unclke in arms or oil business.
regards, and keep that side going
dr. thomas wolfgang, on board of sailboat mikki, dakar, senegal.
If I didn't occasionally go to adjust my pw-controlled flashes many wedding guests wouldn't have a perfect opportunity to come up and talk to me.
Lots of you are completely ignoring the social implications of not appearing to be really working an event.
You give me the impression of being completely lazy. And the pictures I have seen on flickr and elsewhere touting the benefits of these things are completely superficial. It's as if these images were all about the light instead of the people being portraited.
Boooooorrrrrring !!!!
So what if you can shoot 10 times more images than without radio-bridged ETTL! Do you think that will improve your chances of getting the "winning shots"?
Probably not! You will simply end up ruining a perfectly chilled-out event, wedding or otherwise, by taking too many pictures.
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