PocketWizard Announces FlexTT5 and MiniTT1 for Nikon Cameras

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

<p><p><em>"PocketWizard, the industry leader in wireless control and&nbsp;synchronization of cameras, flash and light meters, demonstrates its MiniTT1 Transmitter and FlexTT5&nbsp;Transceiver for the Nikon DSLR camera system. Sales are expected to start in fourth Quarter 2010."</em></p></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1288972456.usr15670.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>PocketWizards have been used by many pros to trigger their flashes wireless, but the downside is that you lose TTL flash metering; you'll need to manually calculate the flash and camera settings. PocketWizards released a new series of transmitters to allow TTL flash metering to be used, but they were only available for the Canon system, with Nikon compatible transcievers "coming soon". Well, looks like "soon" is now. I'm curious to find out if the TTL system works better than the crappy CLS system...</p>

[nelsonh]

"Crappy CLS system". You're kidding, right? I guess someone should tell people like Joe McNally or David Tejada how crappy it is.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Well, I'll clarify a bit: TTL via wireless CLS. Try using it and you'll see why it's crappy.

[nelsonh]

Well...I've been using CLS for indoor and outdoor location portrait work for the past 5 years with about a 90% success rate. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Once you learn the systems limitations (line of sight, range, bright sunlight), you either learn to work around them or you don't, I guess. It's unquestionably the best non-radio wireless flash solution on the market. Having said that, I will be getting the PW Flex units when they roll out the Nikon compatible version, and it'll be interesting if that leads me to stop using CLS entirely. It'll probably depend on the PW UI and ease of use factors.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

I find consistent underexposure as well as inconsistent exposure. I end up just manually setting the flashes via the CLS interface. I think that's the best part of it; I can do flash settings from my camera. It's brilliant that way. :D

[nelsonh]

I use CLS in manual mode most of the time too, I find that generally quicker and requiring less camera-fiddling. But I don't expect any improvement to TTL performance with the PocketWizards, since they're not going to cause the camera to meter any differently after all. The metering still happens through the lens; the only thing the PWs will do is change the way that information gets transmitted to the flashes.