Yonguo YN560-TX Transmitter Released

[Skirball]

I didn't see any other threads discussing the transmitter, other than one on the 560 III. Looks like Yongnuo released the new transmitter back in June. Looks promising, remote power and zoom control of the 560 III, plus dummy triggers for 602 and 603/II receivers.

http://www.amazon.com/YONGNUO-YN560-TX-Transmitter-Compatible-Receivers/dp/B00KM1QZRY/ref=sr_1_17?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1410364860&sr=1-17

There's a couple of reviews online. Anybody get one of these yet?

http://flashhavoc.com/yongnuo-yn560-tx-now-available/

 

[Hannes]

I have one, it does what it says on the tin but not more. The controls are a bit faffy when switching groups and power and the lack of AF assist seems silly. For the money though I don't think it can be beat but anything other than the godox system.

One thing it does really nicely is letting me use a rf-603 as a remote shutter and the 560-tx is the one that fires the flashes.

I'm a bit disappointed I can't add my rf-603 to groups and turn them off as I chose, they are always on. If you have a couple of YN-560III it makes a lot of sense to pick one of these up. If you are using rf-603s I wouldn't.

 

[Marsu42]

and power and the lack of AF assist seems silly.

Depends on the type of af assist - the one on their rt controller clone is so dumb and cheap it's 99% useles. It doesn't adjust for different object distances (so most of the time it's either too hight or too low) and it only works if one of the laser points just happen to be under an af point by pure chance. However, as far as I read their other flashes & controllers might have another af assist beam type.

 

[Skirball]

I got to give mine a try this weekend, but just for a quick portrait session – my real intent with it is for architectural work where I often have flashes in other rooms or even outside. For portrait/product work it’s probably faster to just adjust power at the flash.

That said, for $50 I’m pretty impressed. My only real complaint is that the up/down buttons only do the 1/3 stop increments, I wish I could use them to quickly choose groups and have another button combo for fine tuning. Lack of AF doesn’t really bother me, as I use manual focus for my architectural work and my 6D usually finds focus regardless of the lighting. But everyone has their own uses and work flow. Seems like it wouldn’t have been hard to put AF in, but what do I know.

I’m sure I’ll end up buying another 560 III or two just for convenience, although I have no need for more flashes. It would have been nice to have them function in groups with the 602/603, but I’m sure the technology just wasn’t there (unless you used channels). For my work I can’t really see using more than 3 groups, and it’s not usually the absolute power of the lights as it is the ratio relative to the others. So 2 or 3 controllable lights should be sufficient, and the others can just be dummies.