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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Remote Synch-ing 2 D2Hs
Fred David, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 5:43 PM on 12.13.05 |
->> Hey guys,
I'm trying to set up a mount for basketball games for the first time. I have all the mounting equipment and it's working fine. One problem, I was under the impression that a pair of PocketWizards would work to synch the cameras and fire the shutter on the remote camera. I also figured that this worked completely via the hotshoe as is the case for firing strobes. Apparently, though, I was wrong and the cable provided that works to trigger the flash fits the flash synch port in my camera not the motor drive port and thus won't trigger the shutter.
So, I now understand that I need a motor drive cable of some sort to go from the receiving PW to the remote camera. But, I can't find the right cable to do that. All of the Nikon synch cables I've been able to find on B & H are designed either for manual triggering like the MC-30 or connect two cameras directly, not via the PW's, like the MC-23. So does anyone know exactly what cable it is I should be looking for? By any chance am I going about this all wrong and actually have the right equipment already?
Thanks for any help you guys can give me! |
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Jon Gardiner, Photographer
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George Bridges, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | USA | Posted: 6:35 PM on 12.13.05 |
->> Fred,
the one Jon lists will keep the camera awake at all times. If you want the option of letting the camera sleep and conserve the battery you need the cable made by LPA (the pocket wizard folks)
Give a call to Jeff at Penn or Jody at Roberts and they can help you out.
I've found that the D2 cameras wake up so fast that in a lot of instances you can let them "sleep" and you can keep the battery going longer. But for some sports situations you need the option of keeping it awake at all times.
Another problem with the always-awake cable, since it is sending a signal to the camera to be ready to fire, you can't use the monitor. You have to unplug the cable from the wizard or the camera to check the images when you set the camera up. The one with the on/off switch will let you use the monitor in the go-to-sleep position and then you can switch if over when you want to keep the camera ready. |
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Richard Ritari, Photographer
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Vern Verna, Photographer
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Greenville | SC | United States | Posted: 7:34 PM on 12.13.05 |
->> If you want them to fire in sequence on flash it takes a lot more work than you are considering. You will have to figure lag time etc and have to have at least pw multimaxes. You will need one multimax for each camera that will fire together (including the camera in your hand) and some sort of pw to fire them all. Then you will need an additional set to fire the strobes unless you want to hardwire them.
If you just want to fire it with available light then the cable above will work or the one George speaks about will work. If you run it via the hot shoe on your handheld camera then the shutter button is not pushed till after the one in your hand fires or in other words let just say the camera has a delay of about 1/200 of a second (pretty much what the mark ii is) and so you press the shutter on the one in your hand and it fires about 1/200 of a second later and then roughly 1/200th second later the remote fires (also a little delay in there with the pw). So basically till get the peak action you need to fire about 1/100 of a second early to get the frame. |
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Fred David, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 11:24 PM on 12.13.05 |
->> hmm, this is getting a little bit more complicated than it first seemed.
So, tell me if I'm wrong here...
The strobes I'm using are hardwired. If I have a two multimaxes, one on the remote camera, one on the camera I'm holding with the strobes wired into the PW, I need to set a delay on the multimax I'm holding for the lag time of my camera?
Am I getting warmer at least? |
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Kyle Coburn, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Columbia | MO | USA | Posted: 3:19 AM on 12.14.05 |
->> Fred,
Are you trying to fire your handheld camera and your remote at the same time and have the strobes sync up with both?? Cause that wont work, your handheld will have a properly exposed frame with strobe, and the remote will miss the strobe by a few fractions of a second and will be dark.
At the decisive moment you have to pick your poison (remote or handheld) and fire it. Strobes will not sync up with both.
It is possible however to have two remote cameras sync up on the same set of lights. And both fire at the same time and both have light. This is where the delay functions and lag time measurement features of the multimax come in. I am currently trying to perfect this. |
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Fred David, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 4:00 AM on 12.14.05 |
->> Kyle,
What you said is basically what I'm trying to do. Remote camera, handheld camera, strobes fire at same time. So, if that's not possible, is there anyway to synch remote camera and strobes while triggering remote camera via my handheld?
It's not a total loss if I lose use of the strobes, I'm shooting in the Palestra though which anyone that's shot in Philly can tell you is one of the worst lit college basketball gyms. So I can still get a decent exposure, but it's nothing compared to the quality I can get with a shot lit w/ the strobes. |
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Jon Gardiner, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 8:45 AM on 12.14.05 |
->> If you want your handheld to fire the same time as the remote on the same set of lights, it is possible to do. The trick is to make the handheld a remote in the system. I think there is a previous thread about this somewhere. The thing to do is tape a trigger onto the handheld that goes to the PW transmitter (doesn't need to be a multimax) The three Multimax PWs are for the delay on the strobe line and one on each camera. You have to set the lag on each camera and set the delay on the strobe line Multimax PW. So as you're shooting the game, instead of pressing the shutter button on the handheld, you're going to press the trigger that is taped right next to where the shutter is. This means that if you're autofocusing, you need to use the back button. When you press the trigger you're firing the system that should all sync. The reason this is not really desirable is that it's not consistant. Meaning that it won't sync %100 of the time. For this reason I'm siding with Kyle. Even when I've set up 4-5 remotes, I'm still chosing which to fire. The Flash Wizard II units are way more sophistocated and make it possible to fire multiple cameras in sync with the lights, but they are pretty expensive.
-J |
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