Zeidora said:
Neuro: I looked at the Pocketwizards, and it seems that it can adjust power levels of each flash from the camera mounted unit. Why did you switch to the Canon RT system? Seems that you loose the ability to adjust power level of the Einstein remotely.
Not sure how much hassle it is to adjust the flashes on the units, so that's why I want to start out with cables.
Initially, I had two 430EX and an Einstein, along with the PW MiniTT1, two FlexTT5s and the PowerMC2 for the monolight. The PW setup is a little finicky, things like the order of powering stuff on matters, firmware versions matter (the 1D X wasn't fully supported for many months). Yes, with PWs you can adjust power remotely, sort of...full manual control of flashes requires a master Speedlite (580/600) to be mounted on top of the PW transceiver on the hotshoe. You can adjust power in a limited range with the little AC3 zone controller, which is what I did. That gets you ±3 stops, which is less than the Einstein's full range (you can pick which region you want to control, but you need to connect the PW unit to your computer to change it).
When I swapped my pair of 430's for a pair of 600's and the ST-E3, I found Canon RT system to be very robust and easy to use, but I would still use the PW triggers when I added in the Einstein. Then I added a third 600EX, decided not to spend $200 on another FlexTT5 (which saved me another $200 when I added a fourth 600), and gave optically slaving the Einstein a try. I haven't had a misfire yet (>2 years). So far, not being able to remotely adjust the monolight power hasn't been an issue – the 600s are the ones that go up high on booms, etc., and remotely adjusting power is a breeze. I'd have kept a PW transmitter and the PowerMC2, but there's no way to trigger a PW transmitter from a PC port, and I didn't want to fiddle with hotshoe E-TTL splitters, etc.
Note that if you connect a monolight like the Einstein via cable to the PC port, you will not be able to remotely adjust power. If I needed to remotely adjust power on all lights in a blended setup, my choice would be the Canon RT for the Speedlites and a Buff CyberSync transmitter/receiver for the Einstein, which can be fired from the PC port.