RadioPopper-Palooza
The long-awaited CLS-eTTL extending RadioPopper P1s are starting to arrive to people who were early on the shipping list. I was able to get my mitts on a set, and spent last Friday evening at a local lighting meetup trying to get them to fail.
Keep reading for an unboxing video, an installation video and a torture test from our meetup.
__________
Zeke, over at nicephotomag.com, was so excited to get his P1's he fired up the video camera for the unboxing. He posted this on his site:
There is a little bit of a learning curve to installation and use of the P1s. It's not rocket science, but it is a little more involved than slapping on a pair of Pocket Wizards. Jared Platt has created an installation video, which has been posted to the RadioPopper site. You can watch in a separate window here.
__________
But How Well Do They Work?
I got to play with them for about an hour Friday night in a studio in Baltimore, where a bunch of locals were having a Strobist lighting meetup. Don "Wizwow" Giannatti was on hand, in advance of his East Coast lighting seminar.
The bottom line for the RadioPoppers: In a normal, large-room working environment, I could not get them to fail.
Full length of the 60-foot room? Fine.
No line of sight? No problem.
Firing with a TTL flash in an adjacent room for a little accent? Every time.
Once you get the hang of using them, it is basically just like using eTTL, or iTTL/CLS. But you no longer have the 33-feet, line-of-sight, 30-degree angle limitations. As with out in Phoenix, we tried some hi-speed FP sync stuff, too. Worked like a charm.
In fact, I had to leave the building to drive them to failure. Actually, to me more accurate, they were intermittent in this situation.
In the photo above, I had two SB-800s bouncing off of the third-floor studio walls in TTL mode with RPs. Firing my D300 three floors down from the middle of the Light Rail tracks on Howard Street at night, (which is just so stupid on so many levels) I got about a 50% firing rate. But the studio building is an old, brick. typical inner-city structure. This was a bit of a torture test, and pushed the limits of what they could do.
In normal working situations -- outside shooting, large interior room situations, etc. -- they perform very well. I think many people are really going to be stretching what they can do with wireless TTL.
One downside I note is that you have to remove and replace two screws to change the (AA) battery. This will be a bit of a pain for some, I'd think. But I am told the things sip juice pretty economically, so this will not be something you'd be doing halfway through a wedding.
The screws are metal-into-plastic. So use a little care and do not go Incredible Hulk on them so as not to strip the threads. This, BTW, was because the cases were off-the-shelf, which got around the need for the very expensive design molds that can add six digits and much time to the prototyping and production models.
One other thing you'll have to learn as a result of the RadioPoppers that has nothing to do with the RPs themselves. When shooting TTL from a great distance, you may have to dial down the light on your subject if it is a very small part of the compositional frame. This is a limitation of the TTL metering of the cameras themselves, and each system will behave a little differently. But I found it was very easy to dial in the right amount of flash from the shooting position via the CLS system on my D300.
I am not the only person out there playing with the RPs. Matt "Who Needs Instruction Manuals" Adcock jumped right in with them at a wedding shoot. Also, San Francisco-based photog Ed Pignol is playing with them here.
As you guys know, I am not much of a wireless TTL guy. But you CLS'ers and eTTL'ers will hanceforth have lots more capability built into your flash systems with the RPs. Congrats to Kevin King for all of the technical and economic hurdles he bested in getting a very complicated and sophisticated product to market.
_________
Read more:
:: RadioPopper.com ::
:: Brand New (Official) RadioPopper Flickr Group ::
Keep reading for an unboxing video, an installation video and a torture test from our meetup.
__________
Zeke, over at nicephotomag.com, was so excited to get his P1's he fired up the video camera for the unboxing. He posted this on his site:
There is a little bit of a learning curve to installation and use of the P1s. It's not rocket science, but it is a little more involved than slapping on a pair of Pocket Wizards. Jared Platt has created an installation video, which has been posted to the RadioPopper site. You can watch in a separate window here.
__________
But How Well Do They Work?
I got to play with them for about an hour Friday night in a studio in Baltimore, where a bunch of locals were having a Strobist lighting meetup. Don "Wizwow" Giannatti was on hand, in advance of his East Coast lighting seminar.
The bottom line for the RadioPoppers: In a normal, large-room working environment, I could not get them to fail.
Full length of the 60-foot room? Fine.
No line of sight? No problem.
Firing with a TTL flash in an adjacent room for a little accent? Every time.
Once you get the hang of using them, it is basically just like using eTTL, or iTTL/CLS. But you no longer have the 33-feet, line-of-sight, 30-degree angle limitations. As with out in Phoenix, we tried some hi-speed FP sync stuff, too. Worked like a charm.
In fact, I had to leave the building to drive them to failure. Actually, to me more accurate, they were intermittent in this situation. In the photo above, I had two SB-800s bouncing off of the third-floor studio walls in TTL mode with RPs. Firing my D300 three floors down from the middle of the Light Rail tracks on Howard Street at night, (which is just so stupid on so many levels) I got about a 50% firing rate. But the studio building is an old, brick. typical inner-city structure. This was a bit of a torture test, and pushed the limits of what they could do.
In normal working situations -- outside shooting, large interior room situations, etc. -- they perform very well. I think many people are really going to be stretching what they can do with wireless TTL.
One downside I note is that you have to remove and replace two screws to change the (AA) battery. This will be a bit of a pain for some, I'd think. But I am told the things sip juice pretty economically, so this will not be something you'd be doing halfway through a wedding.
The screws are metal-into-plastic. So use a little care and do not go Incredible Hulk on them so as not to strip the threads. This, BTW, was because the cases were off-the-shelf, which got around the need for the very expensive design molds that can add six digits and much time to the prototyping and production models.
One other thing you'll have to learn as a result of the RadioPoppers that has nothing to do with the RPs themselves. When shooting TTL from a great distance, you may have to dial down the light on your subject if it is a very small part of the compositional frame. This is a limitation of the TTL metering of the cameras themselves, and each system will behave a little differently. But I found it was very easy to dial in the right amount of flash from the shooting position via the CLS system on my D300.
I am not the only person out there playing with the RPs. Matt "Who Needs Instruction Manuals" Adcock jumped right in with them at a wedding shoot. Also, San Francisco-based photog Ed Pignol is playing with them here.
As you guys know, I am not much of a wireless TTL guy. But you CLS'ers and eTTL'ers will hanceforth have lots more capability built into your flash systems with the RPs. Congrats to Kevin King for all of the technical and economic hurdles he bested in getting a very complicated and sophisticated product to market.
_________
Read more:
:: RadioPopper.com ::
:: Brand New (Official) RadioPopper Flickr Group ::
Strobist Lighting Seminar DVDs Are Back In Stock
Browse: Reader Photos | Strobist Gear on Amazon
Feed your brain: Great Lighting Books
by David, at 8:30 AM.
40 Comments:
I'm really looking forward to the Jr. Poppers. A reliable substitute for PW's would be a welcome addition to my gear and not a huge hit on my wallet!
I was wondering what the hell you were doing. HAHAHA.... Nice to meet you BTW...
I've been wondering what happens if the slave flash receive both the direct, line of sight order AND the radio order forwarded -- supposedly with a delay -- by the RPs. If the slave diode sees both the original flash and the RP receiver, one might imaging that strange things could happen. Did you experience it? Maybe the RF transmission delay is so short that the slave flash sees both orders in sync...
@Antoine -
The RP guys suggest you use some tape to block out line-of-sight light from hitting the receiver, but I read in the Blog comments on their site that the response from the radio is so quick that it really didn't matter. The E-TTL/CLS systems use light pulses that happen so quickly and so close together that any sort of delay would cause the system not to work. Kevin basically had to design a real-time relay system, or the RP's wouldn't work for automatic TTL flash metering in any reliable manner.
I think they stated the reason they suggest the tape wasn't for preventing any "clashes" of signals, but so using the RP's outside in the sun or in bright ambient light didn't interfere with the light from the fiber optic bead on the RP receiver.
ohhhhh, so that is how they work... to be honest, I didn't understand how the RPs worked untill I saw that video!
I'm really looking forward to the RadioPopper Jr model since it sounds like it may be a $25 PW, but it's great to see that the P1s are living up to the promise.
Antoine - the slave sensor on your flash gets covered up when you attach the fibre optic from the RadioPopper so you wouldn't need to worry about it receiving more than one trigger. However you probably wouldn't be using these if you had line of sight visibility anyways so it often won't matter.
RadioPopper is taking pre-orders Pre-order P1
^^^ Check the installation video, you need to gaff tape the wireless receiver.
http://www.radiopopper.com/vids/radiopopper_p1_install.mov
I wonder if these transmitters may be obtained from Latin America, more precisely in Argentina.
Qoute Strobist:
As you guys know, I am not much of a wireless TTL guy.
Yeah, but you use SB800s right? You still remain a manual kind of guy. My D200 will control SB800's and 600's manually using Nikons ETTL. You set the power of each flash manually in the menus of the camera. Well, this should work the same way with the Radio Poppers with the resultant increase of reliability and range. Plus..... no more lowering a tall light stand and tilting back the speedlight so you can see the back panel and adjust the power setting. You do it right from the comfort of you your camera menu. (Nikon anyway, I know not, Canon)
What I'd like to see is a small control panel with sliders or pots to do this off the camera and just trigger the panel with the camera. But alas, to maintain the usability of the Nikon Speedlights you must use their PROPRIETARY system to communicate with the flashes. So this will not happen unless Nikon grows a brain.
Radio Poppers are neat because they infringe on no proprietary systems, they just extend them! Thanks for the update David.
Tip for people putting screws into plastic repeatedly: when reinserting the screw, gently spin it backwards - you'll feel it drop just slightly. Then starting twisting it in normally (clockwise) and you won't re-cut threads into the plastic.
Waiting for the Jr. model... but these look great.
PB
Euro-people might stay away from importing this, since the frequency used is in the middle of our GSM band :-(
OK, these things sound great! Here is the million dollar,,,, I mean the $500 question. I have two 580exll's and an ST-E transmitter so i will need 3.
RP's or PW's????
Thanks for sharing David - much appreciated. A bit of feedback on the comments thus far....
@antoine - Generally it is fine if the slave flash sees the "real" signal and the "reproduced" signal at the same time - usually it'll respond to the "real" signal if it's brighter, and to the "reproduced" sig if the range is greater. There may be a very narrow band where activation is intermittent, but you really have to hunt for it.
Usually, you'll just gaff the entire sensor to keep it from being blinded by sun. However, some people may gaff the optic, but leave the bead uncovered to allow a second photographer to trigger the slave with the optical system.
@decoy re Euro-imports - You're right on. I'm sure some units are making their way over the pond, but honestly - it's best to just hang in there for a while and we'll be exporting legit and legal units to the EU very soon set to a different frequency that is intended for this type of use.
decoy,
this is VERY sad news. what would happen if you used them in the uk?
thanks
nas
If anyone has noticed, PWs are about the same price as the P1s on amazon, is there a reason to buy the P1s over PWs?
This is bad news for us Europeans, I hadn't counted on that. Am I right to assume that this same problem will slow down the Juniors coming to our side of the Atlantic? in that case, PW's it is, at least for now.
anonymous -- the only reason to prefer the P1 over PWs is because you want to be able to use the CLS features of your strobes. If you just want to run in manual mode (with the added benefit of the extra exercise you get walking over to your remote lights to changer their settings) then there is no benefit to the P1. :-)
Anonymous said...
If anyone has noticed, PWs are about the same price as the P1s on amazon, is there a reason to buy the P1s over PWs?
I can't believe you just asked that question. What planet have you been living on for the past 4 months?
Is it true that I would allways have the trigger flash on camera to use the RP's? Or is it possible to have just a trigger/TTL-receiver on camera and use the real flash off camera?
Please someone make it clear to me:
I need *at least* two flashes for RP to work?
One on-the-camera to send signal, and an off-the-camera slave?
Or is it possible to attach RP to camera and trigger single flash?
Will RP Jr. also work with TTL?
Above, I was asking as anonymous about "only on-camera flash possible" but saw now that the RP's support Nikon's SU-800...
It appears that the RPs work only in TTL mode. Doing manual still requires I touch each flash (I do not have infared flash control on my Oly E-1) or that the closest to manual I cna get is altering the ratios between TTL flashes. Or, can I get true manual control from the RPs?
Dentharg, I had the same concerns as it's somewhat of a "waste" to have to use (for Nikon) an SB-800 in master mode on camera (we're supposed to be getting flash OFF camera after all). Fortunately, the RP guys have tested this and reported on their site that you can in fact trigger the P1 using the Nikon's built-in flash. Challenge now is finding a suitable way to mount: Gary Fong's Puffer seems to do the trick. No idea about Canon but if I recall you need an external transmitter of some sort IN ADDITION TO the RP.
>>>>>> I need *at least* two flashes for RP to work? Or is it possible to attach RP to camera and trigger single flash?
Really looking forward to the RPs for the European market. There'll be some for Europe a few months down the line won't there?
@tyrone s -
From the new RP website:
http://radiopopper.com/p1_remoteadjust
Looks like RP's will still work in manual mode. They just relay the light signal - so just as you can trigger your CLS stuff in manual using the line of sight system already built into the flashes - you can do it with RP also.
The RPs let you use your ETTL.
That's the sole benefit (since cost is about the same as PW), if you view that as a benefit (not a benefit in the studio in my view. I want M control).
Another issue with the RPs is if you use a pro Canon body (no built in flash) you must waste a flash attached to the camera to trigger the RP system or buy the wireles controller STE2 for another $200.
Bottom line is RPs gets as expensive or more so than PWs, which is owned by a well established company and whose product (PWs) have excellent resale value, so the only reason to want it is if you shoot in ETTL.
Which isn't really the "strobist" way or so I thought.
Anyway, more choices is a good thing.
Hello, David,
We've placed your fine blog on our blog roll at Click!, by the Sun-Sentinel photo staff.
http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/click/
Perhaps you would care to reciprocate?
Best,
Howard Goodman
blogs editor
Sun-Sentinel
hgoodman@sun-sentinel.com
can't wait for canon to reverse engineer this technology and incorporate it into the next-gen st-e2 and speedlites.
help me to understand ....
I generally use my SU unit to fire my SB800s ... I like the fact that I can set each flash in "manual" mode from the SU and adjust as desired ...will the Poppers allow this ?or is strictly a TTL thing ...?
Thanx
bob
Why would I buy these over the proven Pocket Wizards? Makes no sense to me...
Its pretty clear that the RPs offer something different from PocketWizards, but what I don't get is why people keep referring to them as a "CHEAP" alternative? PW PLUS II at B&H is $189. RP P1 is $180 on the RP site. . . . am I missing something?
i just posted my initial review of the radiopopper p1 with image comparisons, pros, cons, and recommendations.
check it out here:
http://www.kern-photo.com/blog/files/radiopopper_review.php
happy poppin'
r. j.
kern-photo.com/blog
if you are interested in making the minor under-the-hood modification to gary fong's $20 puffer pop-up flash diffuser that is required to safely mount a radiopopper p1 transmitter behind a camera's pop-up flash.
with a little macgyver inspiration, some glue, velcro, and a spare battery cover we're able to do the unthinkable: use our wonderful in-camera pop-up flash as a commander to trigger an off-camera flash using absolute brilliant radiopopper p1 functionality.
the ingredients are rather simple. check here for all the details:
http://www.kern-photo.com/blog/files/mounting_a_radiopopper_on_a_puffer.php
There are a number of real advantages to RPs. It's not just the TTL thought that is the biggest selling point.
1. Radio based TTL
2. Manually control the power of the off camera flash from the camera without having to run around.
3. High speed sync. Shoot at 1/8000th of a second at f2.8 outside on a sunny day or even at f1.4.
RPs just give a lot of options that PWs cannot do.
Wow I am loving on these units based upon what I have seen but the $180 per unit price just can't be justified for me. I think the Jr model will suit me a lot better, despite the lack of ETTL
What a wretched song on that video!
The fact that you can control all flash settings via the camera body without going to each flash is the biggest advantage I see. I love being able to switch between manual and ettl on the fly based on the shooting situation.
Exporting these RadioPoppers in not illegal into Europe and nor is illegal to own one. However, peration is likely to be illegal on the frequency that it uses. Therefore, there is no legal reason to stop RadioPopper selling over the Internet to a private individual in Europe, unless that particular member state makes it illegal. Varies from state to state (cough cough, I mean country to country :)
Does anyone know if the radio poppers are compatible with the Sigma 530 Dg Super flashes?
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