Question: PocketWizard Plus vs MultiMAX

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
. ..
Bandicoot wrote:

[SNIP]

Having seen some of your portraits, you certainly get a lot of good
mileage out of those two units.

They are pretty good units. I've also (sometimes) added a Maxxum
5400 or 5600 as the trigger+fill (off a 'brella) flash with a
cable to the camera and manually set power. This is a bit kludgy
but works with a couple softboxes for subject.

Yes, on camera guns can be useful like that: I have a case I keep four
Vivitar 283s and a bunch of cables, slaves, light modifiers and so on in -
lightweight location lighting, sort of... For some still life the really
small light source is useful, and what with Stofen and Lumiquest add ons one
can do a lot. I also use a cheap on-camera gun with some unexposed slide
leader taped over the window as a very effective infra-red trigger: fires
the slave cells on my Elinchroms just fine.


I shot some 1st communions last year with them out of softboxes
at f/11 (ISO 100). No prob in a small setting.

I've done similar things for architectural detailing, which is about the
same sort of scale I suppose.


For home projects with strange ligthing I shoot a roll of cheap
negative film with various power/aperture settings (using a flash
incident meter), note everything down, get the negatives dev'd
and then scan. Then I reshoot on chrome with the appropriate
adjustments... tedious but useful for wierd setups.

A good exercise to decide what fill ratio you want as your 'base value' in
any case I suppose, though print film will make it look a little subtler
than slide due to the lower contrast - which is also why I don't find
Polaroids are always as helpful as one might hope.

And cheap print film is so useful to have around for all sorts of things,
especially for checking things like transport in cameras that have developed
more personality than is good for them...


(this convo has deja lu all about it...).

Oh no, not again. ;-)



Peter

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
. ..
Bandicoot wrote:

[SNIP]

Having seen some of your portraits, you certainly get a lot of good
mileage out of those two units.

They are pretty good units. I've also (sometimes) added a Maxxum
5400 or 5600 as the trigger+fill (off a 'brella) flash with a
cable to the camera and manually set power. This is a bit kludgy
but works with a couple softboxes for subject.

Yes, on camera guns can be useful like that: I have a case I keep four
Vivitar 283s and a bunch of cables, slaves, light modifiers and so on in -
lightweight location lighting, sort of... For some still life the really
small light source is useful, and what with Stofen and Lumiquest add ons one
can do a lot. I also use a cheap on-camera gun with some unexposed slide
leader taped over the window as a very effective infra-red trigger: fires
the slave cells on my Elinchroms just fine.


I shot some 1st communions last year with them out of softboxes
at f/11 (ISO 100). No prob in a small setting.

I've done similar things for architectural detailing, which is about the
same sort of scale I suppose.


For home projects with strange ligthing I shoot a roll of cheap
negative film with various power/aperture settings (using a flash
incident meter), note everything down, get the negatives dev'd
and then scan. Then I reshoot on chrome with the appropriate
adjustments... tedious but useful for wierd setups.

A good exercise to decide what fill ratio you want as your 'base value' in
any case I suppose, though print film will make it look a little subtler
than slide due to the lower contrast - which is also why I don't find
Polaroids are always as helpful as one might hope.

And cheap print film is so useful to have around for all sorts of things,
especially for checking things like transport in cameras that have developed
more personality than is good for them...


(this convo has deja lu all about it...).

Oh no, not again. ;-)



Peter

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
. ..
Bandicoot wrote:

[SNIP]

Having seen some of your portraits, you certainly get a lot of good
mileage out of those two units.

They are pretty good units. I've also (sometimes) added a Maxxum
5400 or 5600 as the trigger+fill (off a 'brella) flash with a
cable to the camera and manually set power. This is a bit kludgy
but works with a couple softboxes for subject.

Yes, on camera guns can be useful like that: I have a case I keep four
Vivitar 283s and a bunch of cables, slaves, light modifiers and so on in -
lightweight location lighting, sort of... For some still life the really
small light source is useful, and what with Stofen and Lumiquest add ons one
can do a lot. I also use a cheap on-camera gun with some unexposed slide
leader taped over the window as a very effective infra-red trigger: fires
the slave cells on my Elinchroms just fine.


I shot some 1st communions last year with them out of softboxes
at f/11 (ISO 100). No prob in a small setting.

I've done similar things for architectural detailing, which is about the
same sort of scale I suppose.


For home projects with strange ligthing I shoot a roll of cheap
negative film with various power/aperture settings (using a flash
incident meter), note everything down, get the negatives dev'd
and then scan. Then I reshoot on chrome with the appropriate
adjustments... tedious but useful for wierd setups.

A good exercise to decide what fill ratio you want as your 'base value' in
any case I suppose, though print film will make it look a little subtler
than slide due to the lower contrast - which is also why I don't find
Polaroids are always as helpful as one might hope.

And cheap print film is so useful to have around for all sorts of things,
especially for checking things like transport in cameras that have developed
more personality than is good for them...


(this convo has deja lu all about it...).

Oh no, not again. ;-)



Peter

Bandicoot wrote:

"Alan Browne" wrote in message

can do a lot. I also use a cheap on-camera gun with some unexposed slide
leader taped over the window as a very effective infra-red trigger: fires
the slave cells on my Elinchroms just fine.

I've tried that, but it just as effective to point the on camera
flash at the ceiling on a low power setting (1/16 ... 1/32) ...
doesn't add to the lighting or create unwanted highlights.

And cheap print film is so useful to have around for all sorts of things,
especially for checking things like transport in cameras that have developed
more personality than is good for them...

I've never had film x-port probs with any camera. With the
Maxxum 9 I hapilly do mid-roll swaps and load right to the next
unexposed frame ... never a double X... Once there was a half
frame gap between shots, but that's it.

Cheers,
Alan

--
-- rec.photo.equipment.35mm user resource:
-- http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.--

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
Bandicoot wrote:

"Alan Browne" wrote in message

can do a lot. I also use a cheap on-camera gun with some unexposed
slide leader taped over the window as a very effective infra-red
trigger:
fires the slave cells on my Elinchroms just fine.

I've tried that, but it just as effective to point the on camera
flash at the ceiling on a low power setting (1/16 ... 1/32) ...
doesn't add to the lighting or create unwanted highlights.

Probably - but try it shooting architecture in a 10th century church with
the ceiling 80ft away and made of dark timber...


And cheap print film is so useful to have around for all sorts of
things,
especially for checking things like transport in cameras that have
developed more personality than is good for them...

I've never had film x-port probs with any camera. With the
Maxxum 9 I hapilly do mid-roll swaps and load right to the next
unexposed frame ... never a double X... Once there was a half
frame gap between shots, but that's it.


I've never had them with any of my Pentaxes either, but I have with people
I've been teaching who've been using 'other brands..' I did have trouble
with an old Contax rangefinder once, but it was easily enough cured. I find
medium format more prone to such problems in fact, but again, generally the
solution is simple enough.

A roll of cheap C41 is worth having in the bag when travelling too. If you
drop a body or do something else that might damage it, it takes no time to
shoot a roll and take it to a place that will do one hour D&P, then you can
get quick feedback that everything is OK. Not so easy to get same day -
never mind one hour - developing on E6 in most of the world.


Peter

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
Bandicoot wrote:

"Alan Browne" wrote in message

can do a lot. I also use a cheap on-camera gun with some unexposed
slide leader taped over the window as a very effective infra-red
trigger:
fires the slave cells on my Elinchroms just fine.

I've tried that, but it just as effective to point the on camera
flash at the ceiling on a low power setting (1/16 ... 1/32) ...
doesn't add to the lighting or create unwanted highlights.

Probably - but try it shooting architecture in a 10th century church with
the ceiling 80ft away and made of dark timber...


And cheap print film is so useful to have around for all sorts of
things,
especially for checking things like transport in cameras that have
developed more personality than is good for them...

I've never had film x-port probs with any camera. With the
Maxxum 9 I hapilly do mid-roll swaps and load right to the next
unexposed frame ... never a double X... Once there was a half
frame gap between shots, but that's it.


I've never had them with any of my Pentaxes either, but I have with people
I've been teaching who've been using 'other brands..' I did have trouble
with an old Contax rangefinder once, but it was easily enough cured. I find
medium format more prone to such problems in fact, but again, generally the
solution is simple enough.

A roll of cheap C41 is worth having in the bag when travelling too. If you
drop a body or do something else that might damage it, it takes no time to
shoot a roll and take it to a place that will do one hour D&P, then you can
get quick feedback that everything is OK. Not so easy to get same day -
never mind one hour - developing on E6 in most of the world.


Peter