I Bought Some Pocket Wizards. Now What?
July 17th, 2007 by Tim Solley
This is a common question.
Pocket Wizard triggers are wonderful, plain and simple. They are rather expensive at about $180 a piece (you need two to start), but if you’re serious about getting your lighting off the camera, having no wires, and having reliability, then they can’t be beat.
When my set of PW’s came, I was as excited as a kid in a candy store. I couldn’t wait to start taking pictures with them. I opened up the boxes…and realized I needed some cables before I could use them. I was so disappointed knowing I would have to wait at least another 24 hours before using my new toys. Craziness.
So here’s what you need to know to use PW’s. Order them at the same time and you’ll save yourself the total agony I experienced.
Triggering SpeedLights
The easiest way to trigger your SpeedLight is to use a Paramount mini phone to hot shoe adapter. The mini phone (just like your headphones) goes into the PW, and the shoe of your flash fits into the other end. One note from my personal experience: make sure the flash is in the shoe mount all the way or the flash won’t fire.
One thing I like about this part is that on the shoe end, a little screw comes out and you can mount it directly on the 1/4-20 stud on your light stand or umbrella bracket. This makes for a sturdy place to mount your flash.
You can get these at Adorama for about $36.
Triggering Studio Strobes
Studio strobes usually have a 1/4″ phono jack. For these you need a Paramount mini phone to 1/4″ phono adapter. Plug the mini phone into the PW, the phono end into your strobe, and you’re all set.
These will set you back about $18 at Adorama.
Looking For A Shortcut?
When I’m in the studio, I like to just go ahead and use my 430EX SpeedLight to trigger my studio strobes. I hook up the PW to my SpeedLight and use it as my hard accent light. It then triggers the optical slave cells in my studio strobes. This way I only need two PW’s (one on the camera and one on the SpeedLight) and can utilize all my lighting equipment.
Got any tips or hard-won experience you’d like to share with other Sublime Light readers? Leave a comment below and let us know.
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August 1st, 2007 at 12:25 am
Hi.
I’ve always been mystified with PWs. “Just where do you put them?” “How do they attach…?” I think they’re kind of expensive, as well!
Here’s what I use since I don’t use PWs. My first set of strobes were a pair of el-cheapo Impact 100 watt-seconds strobes. I don’t know if they come any cheaper than that. My camera didn’t have a PC terminal, and the adapters that mounted on my camera wouldn’t trigger my strobes.
Since I’m a one-light proponent, like your article encourages, I mounted my 430EX on the camera, took it out of ETTL II mode and put it in manual. Turned her down to 1/64 power and used her to trigger the strobe. Works perfect! If I want to I could use that to trigger both strobes (I have in the past).
I’m looking to get a set of Calumet Travelites or Profoto Compacts (!), and perhaps I’ll step up to PWs then.
Thanks for the article!
Best,
Scott
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Scott, once again you’ve added a great tip to the content here. This is indeed a fantastic way to trigger strobes if you don’t have the expensive triggers. Let me add a little to your tip.
If you find that the light from the on camera flash is adding a little too much to the photo and you’re already dialed all the way down, try taping a piece of paper over the flash head or putting a neutral density gel over it to bring the light down an extra stop. This way it will still trigger the strobes but will have less of an impact on the photo.
And if you don’t have a SpeedLight that you can point away from directly at the subject, try taping a 3×5 card in place to block the pop up flash and bounce it up to the ceiling. This will eliminate that direct light. Dial the flash exposure compensation all the way down when you do this, since there’s no manual mode for on board flash.