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PocketWizard FlexTT5 and 580exII RF Issues?

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I am glad they are available in the Asian Market, but I have not seen a single retailer in North America and many of the other markets.

As for the cables, doesn't bother me in the least. I have seen many different jacks on strobes, so makes it easier to allow the end consumer to buy what they need.

PC Terminal. 1/4" Phono. 1/8" mono. Elinchrom? Metz? There are a few others.

Bluetooth in general is a short distance connection. It does avoid some interference with its handshake protocol, but I also have found varying results with my connection and reliability of say my cell in my car alone, compared to in a crowded room.

The 2.4gHZ band is very crowded. My old phone and wi-fi router both were at one time 2.4 and I used to lose my connection on my laptop during calls. And again. It all depends on the scenario and set up but long and short, you are more likely to get interference from a phone, laptop, router or other device on the 2.4 ghz band. It is also one of the reason phones and other longer distance devices started to promote the 5.8 ghz and DECT bands as having "less interference" because there are less devices using them.

As far as people go and "complaints"... How many people are using Pocket Wizards vs how many people are complaining? Using Hard Drives for example... If you go out to most techincal/computer websites and look at reviews, you will see that a great many HDs seem like pretty much crap with people reporting half of the purchased ones DOA. I am fairly confident if Phottix had as large of an installation base as Pocket Wizard, you would see just as many "issues" posted on their page, maybe even more so, because to me, especially over the 2.4 gHZ band, any distance firing is likely to run into issues. Also one of the reasons why Pocket Wizard will publish up to 500m+ where Odin is 100m+ I trust the Pocket Wizard Band over the 2.4 over distance.

And a correction on the original poster. They had NO ISSUES. They were tire-kicking and and looking for feedback because they had "read some things" about interference.

"Does anyone here have experience with PWs FlexTT5 and the 580exII? I'm looking at moving into remote ETTL, but have seen some reviews where range was severely limited due to high RF interference from the 580. "

I for one am always welcome to competition. The end result are better products at cheaper prices. If the Odin ever makes its way into North America, I will be happy to test or watch the feedback... but I also expect to see threads like - "Does anyone else have problems with Odin and XBox Connect? - My neighobors XBox keeps interfering with my studio"
 
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Maui5150 said:
Also one of the reasons why Pocket Wizard will publish up to 500m+ where Odin is 100m+ I trust the Pocket Wizard Band over the 2.4 over distance.

I just lol'd, come on I dare you to set a 580 exII on a Flex TT5 at the finishline of a 1/4 mile drag-strip and the camera at the start and show me it triggers on full ETTL. No cheating... 500m+ no. way! The PlusII's are 1600 ft, but the Flex, nope!

Here's a link to Pw's own page, and how to improve range:

http://www.pocketwizard.com/inspirations/technology/range/

Have some fun reading while I'll go and shoot like this:

http://photobyviggo.com/random/odin.jpg

That's at 91mm focal, and ETTL-mode, this is probably 20 meters from the end of the parking lot I tested at, I still went over the road at the other side and put a tree in the line of sight, still triggered perfectly.
 
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Yesterday I was firing 3 flash (all off camera) with mini and flex. Taking full length pictures in a dark warehouse with the 1Ds3 + 400f/2.8 combination at 19 meters. Not a missed flash out of about 50. There were 2 580EX and 1 580EXII with 1 flash out of line of sight all using eTTL2.

If the problem was so severe as seem to be suggested I would have expected some missed or badly exposed shots.

In view that I have never had a problem I can only deduce that the firmware has cured the problem or the UK frequencies dont create a problem
 
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Sadly, my PW flex system rarely gave me consistant results. When they worked they were great but at wedding receptions I had major problems on more than one occasion. When shooting a wedding you just cannot have problems with things working, theres no time to diagnose the problem. Last time i used them only one of two lights triggered and all the settings were correct so i tried it with my other flex module to trigger it and still had issues. Then later the other one worked instead. I had it all set up at home testing that ttl and everything was working before doing a headshot of the public library's new board member. I could not get it to expose correct when there. I had to drop the on camera exposure to -2 stops. WTF!
PW are friendly at helping when i call who can call them and talk to tech support when in the field?

I dusted off my plus II's and have a whole setup now using my 580exII's manually. I'm not even going to use TTl again til i can afford a full set of Canon RT flashes, which could be a while since i've spent about 6G's recently.
 
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