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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Alien Bees Cyber Commander
Chris Parent, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Baton Rouge | LA | United States | Posted: 10:20 PM on 10.25.10 |
->> I happen to come across the cyber commander unit on Alien Bees site the other day when I was looking to at buying a set of four alien bees 1600ws flashes. I am planning to put them up as strobes in an arena and was planning to use pocketwizards to fire them, but then I came across this unit.
Has anyone had any experience using this? Does it work well enough to be reliable from the catwalks to the floor of an arena?
Thanks in advance for everyone's help. |
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Yamil Sued, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Peoria | AZ | USA | Posted: 10:50 PM on 10.25.10 |
->> The Cyber commander is good for Controlling units like changing power and settings. Do you expect to be doing that a lot or are you going to set them to Full Power and leave them like that all the time!! If that is your plan, the Paul C Buff Cyber Synch is what you need!!
When you buy the Cyber Commander you need to buy One CSR+ or CSRB+ Unit for every flash unit you have!!
Feel free to call me directly if you have any questions.
Y |
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Bryan Kaisk, Photographer
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Copley | OH | United States | Posted: 11:02 PM on 10.25.10 |
| ->> I use the Cyber Commander on a daily basis. Works well, but I find it to have a high amount of misfires. Just make sure that it is fit snug on the hotshoe. Since it's made of plastic there's some play in it. Overall, it works rather well, but Yamil's suggestion may be the way to go in this instance. Good luck... |
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Chris Parent, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Baton Rouge | LA | United States | Posted: 11:36 PM on 10.25.10 |
->> I was looking into the Cyber Commander to have more options in shooting with the strobes. Instead of having to run up and down to the catwalks, I was planning to be able to adjust lights from the ground to come up with more unique shots that are just blasting away with 2 or 4 strobes. There will be times where all I do in a game is shoot all 4, but others I will be changing it up a good amount.
If all I was doing was shooting all 4 strobes, I would just use the pocketwizards I have which work great. I'm looking at this more to offer the ability to do something different, if it can be pretty reliable and useful. |
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Yamil Sued, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Peoria | AZ | USA | Posted: 11:39 PM on 10.25.10 |
->> There you go!! Then you can use the Cyber Commander!!
Remember, you need to buy One CSR+ or CSRB+ for every unit you have!!
OR...
Buy Four Einsteins and four of the little Modules, one for every unit!!
Y |
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Yamil Sued, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Peoria | AZ | USA | Posted: 11:49 PM on 10.25.10 |
->> The AB 1600 Kit will run you:
AB 1600 4 $360.00 $1,440.00
CSR+ 4 $90.00 $360.00
Cyber Comm 1 $180.00 $180.00
$1,980.00
The Einstein Kit will run you:
Einsteins 4 $500.00 $2,000.00
Transciever 4 $30.00 $120.00
Cyber Comm 1 $180.00 $180.00
$2,300.00 |
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Max Simbron, Photographer, Assistant
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Phoenix | AZ | USA | Posted: 3:21 AM on 10.26.10 |
->> Chris,
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10053-10715-10726
Here's an excerpt that I would worry about:
During that first practice, however, a couple of wireless problems cropped up. We saw one instance of a flash firing out of sync, resulting in the strange effect you see in the photo below, and a handful of instances of a flash not firing. It was the same flash in the same location each time.
For next day's practice, three changes were made. We deployed a different Einstein at that spot, switched from the CSXCV Transceiver module to the CSRB+ receiver for all four lights and ran them on frequency 9 instead of frequency 5. The outcome was the same, or nearly so. While the late-firing problem didn't repeat, the same light location again didn't fire several times. Out of 540 frames shot over two days of practices, there was one instance of firing out of sync and twelve instances of no firing. All from the same light position, even though the light and wireless gear at that location was changed from the first day to the second.
***********************
I'd say that you may want to test this all out, and have hardwire and pocket wizards as a backup. |
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Randy Sartin, Photographer, Assistant
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Knoxville | TN | USA | Posted: 8:20 AM on 10.26.10 |
->> Radio Popper JrX Studios do an amazing job of this, plus will do the same thing with a lot of hotshoe flashes (if you get the "cube" thingy.)
http://www.radiopopper.com/products/ |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 8:45 AM on 10.26.10 |
->> While I don't have or use the new Cyber Sync product from Buff, I DO have and use the older version of their controller with my bees. As mentioned with the new version the 'old' version also acted up when firing or trying to sync at speeds over 1/125. The solution for me was to fire the strobes with wizards and just use the Buff commander to adjust the lights.
Best of both worlds, I could adjust lighting from the ground and sync at any speed I wanted. |
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