When you thought of off camera flash \ strobe triggers, there used to really only be one game in town, namely the Pocket Wizard Plus II triggers \ transceivers which are the gold standard of non TTL flash triggers.

Starting a few years back though, a lot of other companies started getting in the game. There were the Skyports, CyberSyncs, Radio Poppers, etc. They operated on the transmitter – receiver model where you would typically buy one transmitter and a bunch of recievers to fire all of your external flashes.

A few months ago, when the Chinese company Aputure asked me if I wanted to beta test their new Trigmaster Plus system, which is very similar to the Pocket Wizard Plus II transceivers in that each unit can serve as either a transmitter or a receiver, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Chinese triggers compared to the Pocket Wizards.

I also found their system to be interesting because each unit, like the Pocket Wizards can do a few things like trip the camera shutter, trigger the strobes, or serve as a radio receiver. Unlike the Pocket Wizards though, these units are about 1/3rd the price (I saw some units on Ebay for $55 with free shipping) and they also come with all the cables you could want for free (Pocket Wizard charges a lot for cables). That makes these units at least 3 times cheaper than the Pocket Wizard IIs with the same functionality enabled by default (you have to buy the extra cables for the PW).

The cables that come with the Trigmaster Plus include:

The other big difference is the fact that you can mount your flashes directly on top of the transceivers on the on-board hotshoe. This eliminates the need to use a sync cord from the transceiver to the flash, although you can still do that if you want to or trigger a second flash from one transceiver via a PC-sync cord as shown in the picture below:

The other cool thing about having transceivers that come with the shutter release cable for free, is that if you have 3 transceivers like me, you have 2 identical shutter release remotes, which is awesome for photo booth fun. I threw a party a month ago and left 2 remotes in the booth, allowing whoever to set of the camera, whenever. The result was a lot of really funny pics.

How well do they work? When you have the flashes mounted directly on the transceivers they work very reliably b/c no cables are involved (that could go loose or have a poor connection). There are a lot of switches and ports on the transceivers! It takes a while to get used to setting them to perform each task, but after reading through the short manual a couple times you will probably get the hang of it.

One thing that confused me a bit was the fact that the big button on the transceiver is only for shutter release, it’s not a test button. You need to mount the transceiver on the camera to trigger any flashes – you can’t trigger them by simply pressing the button.

Cables, for the most part are of high quality, except for the PC sync cord, which is of the standard variety you can buy on eBay. I’ve found that pc sync cords are the weak point in any wireless flash system, as the connections tend to go bad rather quickly. I’ve had many sync cables exactly like the ones that come with the Trigmaster go bad on the Paul C Buff CyberSync system.

You probably won’t be using the PC sync cable that much though, as the transceivers are designed to connect to the camera and flash via a hotshoe mount. This is an improvement over the Pocket Wizards, which again don’t have the flash to hotshoe mount option. With the Trigmaster Plus, you will only have to use the PC cables if you plan on connecting a transceiver to a flash via PC-sync cord or if you want to use a flash on camera at the same time.

The other two cables have a coiled cord much like the old school telephone cord and they are of great quality. I’m very happy with those and did not have any trouble with them when testing them. I have a feeling that the ability for the cord to stretch will prevent breakage over the long term.

A few final notes – The transceivers can operate on 6 channels and changing a channel is as easy as pressing a button. Sometimes changing the channel is a bit too easy though and you might bump the button by accident. Also, you can’t really see it in my pictures, but the transceivers have a standard tripod screw mount on the bottom so they can easily attach to a lightstand or tripod – this might take some getting used to type mount if you are used to attaching your flashes to a cold shoe mount. The Trigmaster Plus system takes standard AAA batteries, which is good because you can always find replacements at any convenience store or supermarket.

Overall, so far, so good – there are some minor complaints but at this price you can’t expect everything to be perfect. I haven’t played with these triggers enough or taken them to enough extremes to give a final verdict on range or reliability, but I will probably try them out on an upcoming photo shoot soon.

UPDATE 04/12/2011
I did some extreme distance testing in the open lot behind my condo and I was able to get Trigmaster Plus units to trigger a flash reliably up to 300ft, or the same as the 100m advertised by Aputure. By reliably I mean 3 successful triggers back to back while in burst mode on my Canon 5dmkII

In terms of distance, my estimate is based on Google maps. As you can tell from the pictures below, you probably won’t ever have to trigger from that far away. To test, I placed my flash at the fence on the edge of my condo, and walked out to the end of a field, triggering along the way. My maximum distance was from the end of the fence of my condo out to underneath a tree, far away.

In my test I used both the Paul C Buff Cybersyncs and the Aputure Trigmaster Plus units, and they were both able to trigger out to 100m. I did notice that when I got the transmitter / transceiver units of the different flash triggering systems too close to each other, there was some radio interference leading to reliability problems, so those carrying around multiple sets of triggers should be aware of this.

One interesting thing to note is that my slave flashes are Nikon SB-26 units and I am using the Aputure Trigmaste Plus units for Canon. I have also gotten the Trigmaster Plus transceivers to trigger an older Sigma for Canon flash that I have as well.

Has anyone else used the Trigmaster Plus? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Most photographers are no stranger to self portraits – after all, when you want to practice new techniques, sometimes the only available subject is yourself. I’m no exception – I recently I shot a self portrait for my upcoming Austin coffee table photo book “Austin, Texas: A Photographic Portrait” (coming out in March 2011).

This time around though, I had a bit of help from a new gadget that removed some of the frustrations commonly experienced with self portraits – namely framing and focus issues.

The good folks at Aputure Limited sent me their Gigtube Wireless Digital Viewfinder for evaluation and this new toy took a lot of the guesswork out of taking self portraits and let me focus more attention on other aspects of creating images, such as lighting and posing.

I’ve been using their RF Wireless Remote Kit for years with great success (I originally purchased it for its much lower price point than the Canon wireless trigger), so when they asked me both asked me to do an interview on their blog and to test out their latest product, I jumped at the chance.

The Gigtube Wireless Transmitter plugs into both the video out and remote trigger ports on your camera. From the Gigtube viewfinder you can view whatever would be on the LCD screen of the camera attached to the transmitter. Using the Gigtube Wireless system you can also trigger the camera shutter remotely by pressing a button on the wireless viewfinder.

Because you can see exactly what the camera is seeing, you can compose the photo through the lens – eliminating much of the guess work and randomness that comes with self portraits. The end result is probably the best headshot I’ve ever taken of myself… one that I’m proud to use in my new book.

This photo illustrates exactly what the Gigtube Wireless does, allowing the photographer to see exactly what the viewfinder on the back of the camera normally displays. This is very useful for self portraits and for photos triggered remotely from afar. No more running back and forth to see image previews on the back of the camera!

Even though the transmitter unit has a hotshoe mount for convenience, the Gigtube transmitter doesn’t have to be mounted on the camera to function properly.

The only thing the Gigtube wireless was not able to fix was my Canon 5D Mark II’s the inability to focus in live view when triggered remotely. To be fair, this was not a limitation of the Gigtube Wireless, but the camera itself.

This issue was overcome by getting an assistant to set the focus for me at the beginning of the shoot and then making sure to stand in the same spot for the photos. In summary, the Gigtube Wireless System is a cool tool that I’m looking forward to using in other specialty situations. It is a bit bulkier than my normal wireless triggering device, so I think I’ll only reserve it for use on special occasions, using my smaller Aputure RF Remote in my daily camera kit.

Do any of you use wireless viewfinder devices? What about remote triggers? Which ones do you like or dislike?

I wrote a first impression mini review about the Canon 5DmkII the other day, and I’m following it up with this post with a a couple of very important posts.

I’ve shot about 300 frames with a 5DmkII in both daylight and at night – I felt that I need to point out 2 things that I think 95% of the 5dmkII reviews are missing.

1) Don’t pay attention to the specs or reviews from people who never owned a Canon 5D. I am here to announce that the Auto Focus on the 5DmkII is better than the original Canon 5D, especially on the outside points. Yes, the 5DmkII AF is better than the original 5D’s focus. It’s not as good as the D3 or the D700′s, but it works and it is good enough for me for sure.

The outside AF points are much more usable on the 5DmkII than the original 5D – there’s definitely a lot less hunting for a good focus. In bright light, the outside points lock on very quickly with no problem at all, and even in dark scenes with decent contrast the outside points work nicely as well.

I’ve seen some tests say that the AF is the speed same as the original 5D, but in real world scenarios, the focus on the 5DmkII is slightly faster to lock on than the original 5D on all points.

2) In real world scenarios, the higher ISOs are extremely usable despite pixel peepers pointing out flaw that don’t really matter. Here’s a sample at ISO 3200, 1/160th sec, f2.2. I’m even including a full resolution image that’s pretty much a straight Lightroom conversion from RAW apart from a crop. Here is the full res pixel peepable version – please do not use without permission.

A blacksmith works with iron at Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta, Georgia. It was literally freezing that night… the fast 1/160th shutter speed @ ISO 3200 really helped me avoid camera shake.

I got my hands on a Canon 5DmkII yesterday and shot with it for a couple of hours, on and off with my friend Ben.

My impressions vs the original 5D (after having shot with an original 5D for more than a year):

1) The build quality and the ergonomics are a little bit better. The quality of the plastic and rubber grips just feels better for some reason. I really like that the AF button on the back of the camera has moved further in so that it’s much easier to support the camera and use the AF button on the back at the same time

2) Layout has changed a little bit, will take some slight getting used to… the back light button for the camera settings has moved to the opposite side, there are now 3 custom functions, the on and off switch feels a lot stiffer.

3) AF works better! The outside AF points are actually useful on the 5dmkII, while on the old model, I avoided using them completely. I think the focus is a bit faster as well, with less “hunting” for the right focus.

4) Shutter is a bit quieter… it has a slightly more machine-like noise though.

5) High ISO performance is awesome! I would feel confident using ISO6400 quite often. The first portrait posted below of my friend Ben was shot at f2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/15th in street light in a dark alley. The photo (with a little bit of camera shake) is posted below. The noise characteristics are decent – the D700 has less color noise but the luminance noise on the 5D is relatively low. If the image is well lit, then noise is not bad, however if the image is underexposed, you will see color noise in the shadows above ISO 6400 (in the extended ISOs). I would only use the extended ISOs if I was going to shoot black and white or if I wanted to stylistically degrade an image.

Also, because the camera resolves in 21mp… when viewed at 100% any imperfections are going to be magnified b/c they are twice as obvious as usual. Translation, pixel peepers might be disappointed w/ this camera but prints will come out just fine.

6) I’m not a video guy, but the video mode is pretty awesome, simply because you can use existing lenses and a single system for both stills and relatively short videos. The control over depth of field is impressive, especially when using my 70-200 2.8 IS or 100mm macro lens.

7) Metering seems to be better than on the original 5D.

8) Live view is awesome! You can set white balance real time using live view – very useful… Also the screen resolution on the newer, larger LCD really helps out. Being able to focus in live view is a plus too.

9) The new battery seems to last a long time.

Conclusion – The extra low light performance and video is the real draw for me here – everything else is just icing on the cake. Canon made a ton of improvements on this model. While it’s still not the perfect camera, I am definitely going to get one. A camera to me is a tool, and this new tool allows me to change my shooting style a lot and take previously unattainable photos and videos! ISO 6400 is the new ISO 1600!

I think this camera is worth the money and I can’t wait to try new, creative things with it.

Sample images.

ISO 6400 @ f2.8, 1/15th – some camera shake on this photo

ISO 2000 @ f2.8, 1/160th sec w/ flash – For a full sized photo, click here: http://www.petertsaiphotography.com/samples/peter_tsai_5DmkII_peep_peep_1.jpg

ISO 6400 @ f2.8, 1/60th sec w/ flash – some movement on this photo – For a full sized photo, click here: http://www.petertsaiphotography.com/samples/peter_tsai_5DmkII_peep_peep_2.jpg

These will probably be the the last photos I post from my beloved 300D – it lasted me for 4 long years but it was time to move on to the Canon 5D.

Speaking of great gear, I’ve owned the 100mm Macro Lens for a long time and I’m just now starting to fully appreciate it. I haven’t used it too much, because It’s hard to get really sharp macro photos hand holding. However, after getting into Strobist stuff, it’s taken my Macro images to a new level of clarity. Here are a few Macro + Strobist shots I took a few months ago. I know it’s been a while. See if you can guess what they are.

I believe that I only had one strobe up and to the left on all of these shots.

I picked up a Canon 100mm 2.8 EF Macro lens about a month ago. I heard consistently that it’s supposed to be one of the best macro lenses on the market and a great portrait lens as well. I’ve even heard that it rivals the quality of Canon’s famed L-series lenses. When I came across a great deal on this lens so I thought I would give it a try – there’s always Ebay if it doesn’t work out right? I haven’t had the chance to get to know this lens fully but here are my first impressions.

Overall the lens can be summed up as being able to focus very close, producing very sharp images, and having extremely shallow depth of field unless stopped down to F16. I didn’t stop down that much on the following photos because of some dust spots on my sensor :) Camera shake is also an issue when focusing very close with this lens and a tripod is recommended.

here are some examples of GOOD photos.

This is pretty close to minimum focal distance, which is 1.02 ft \ 0.31 m. This photo was taken with a Canon Digital rebel, which has a 1.6x crop on the sensor.

When all went well, I was able to prodce extremely sharp images with the 100mm macro. Below are the images posted next to a 100% crop.
  
Notice the extreme falloff on the corners and edges of this image, but see how sharp the focal point can be.

Again, extremely sharp detail with this image.

I’m happy with this image but note the extremely shallow depth of field even at F9.0. This can be used for a very dramatic effect especially on portraits but I can see it being frustrating when trying to have the whole scene in focus, especially since I usually shoot at F8 on my other lenses.

Another example of a pretty sharp image

And now for some of the challenges with this lens:

I’m quite happy with the results above but truth be told I had to really bracket the focus to get these images. I think the main reason being it’s hard to get the subject in focus because the focal plane is razor thin unless you are shooting at a rediculously high F-stop – which requres a lot of light. Below you will see an example of how the smallest change in position will throw off the focus.

This spider was extremely small – maybe just 1-2 centimeters across. This photo appears sharp on the spider’s head but notice the quick falloff on the legs. This photo was taken at F8.

I probably moved the camera a couple of centimeters here and it threw the whole image out of focus except for the top corner.

I would recommend shooting at 1/200s at F16 with an external flash and either a very sturdy tripod or a monopod when doing macro work with this lens to minimize camera shake and maximize depth of field.

  
Here’s a very average photo – I got a lot like this. The focus on this image was just a little bit off on the crop. The resulting image is no as sharp as the examples above. This was pretty typical.

  
This photo was taken at 1/125s and the spider wasn’t moving that much. I didn’t have a good tripod or monopod at the time so you can see the shake, especially on the crop.

100mm is a pretty long focal distance and since the lens does not have image stabilization, the potential for camera shake is pretty great – especially if you are taking photos of objects that are close to the lens. Even the tiniest movement of the camera will result in a blurry images.

Overall I like this lens. I really like being able to focus very close with it, but am just not used to the challenges. I don’t like having to use a tripod, but if I can consistently get images like these above, it will be worth it. I just got a got a monopod for xmas so I’ll be testing it out over the next few weeks. I also want to get a sturdy tripod. I think it’s pretty much a requirement with any macro work like this.

I’ll probably post a followup review in a few months. UPDATE: 8-10-07 – part 2 of my Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro Review is located here.