Wireless Transmitters

Okay, so you've decided it's time to be able to fire your lights with a wireless system. You take a trip to your local photography store or you look online at places like B&H, Samy's, Adorama, and others, and you come away with sticker shock!

"It's gonna cost how much to remotely fire my lights?"

Suddenly, being tethered to a cable between you and your lights doesn't seem so annoying or inhibiting. After all, a lot of photographers for a lot of years made do without wireless sytems.

So here's my advice which I feel I can freely give at this time because you don't see any advertisements on this blog from photo-retailers or manufacturers. Don't waste your money on the high-priced wireless systems unless those systems really REALLY have functions that you cannot really REALLY live without.

For me, I bought one of those cheap-oh, Hong Kong-produced systems off E-Bay that cost about $40 and have a really low profile when sitting on my hotshoe. In fact, I bought two systems because they're so cheap. And I bought them over two years ago and, to this day, they haven't failed me.

Here's the deal: I never shoot models where I'm more than 100 feet away from them. (That's the range of my Hong Kong specials.) In fact, I'm almost never more than ten or twenty feet away from the models. Sure, you can buy a system for about ten times the cost that will give you an effective range of approximately 1600 feet but when was the last time you needed to fire a strobe sixteen-hundred feet away? I'm talking about those of you who shoot glam, portraits, fine art nudes, and similar genres.

Then there's the frequency argument. Well, my little Hong Kong systems let me choose between four frequencies. I don't think I need more than four frequencies. Actually, I've never used more than one frequency and I shoot a lot of pretty girls in my pretty girl shooter business.

Let's not forget about being able to fire my lights with my lightmeter because some lightmeter companies have deals with some wireless companies and they've integrated some components so I can fire my lights with my meter when I'm ready to take a meter reading. (How was that for a run-on sentence?) Anyway, I'm lazy but not that lazy. Besides, since I bought two of the cheapie systems I keep one of the little transmitters in my pocket so that, like a wizard, I can magically fire my lights with one hand in my pocket and the other holding my meter. Sure, sometimes the models look at me funny--like they think I'm playing with myself while I'm groping for my pocket transmitter--but that's easy enough to explain off. Well, usually it is.

So there you have it: The official and current position of the Pretty Girl Shooter Blog regarding wireless systems. The gratuitous eye-candy featured in this post is Roxanne who I shot without the benefit of strobes or Hong Kong wireless systems but, rather, with the help of the late-afternoon, "Golden Hour," sun and an assistant with a gold reflector.