Portable Studio Backgrounds - What do you use

[Manfred M]

It's all a moot point anyway, as Sekonic insists on building in the triggers, so you have to rebuy your light meter if you swap triggers (sigh). It could be that Sekonic is licensing signal protocols from PocketWizard, Elinchrome, and Phottix, and not the other way around.

Yes, you've got to love this lack of standardization in the photo industry. In some ways I miss the old M42 lens mount...

But you are right. Even with the Sekonic / Pocket Wizard integration, I can't use all of the zone settings on my Einstein 640 lights, if I want to trigger them with the flash meter radio. I'd have to buy the Paul C Buff triggers, but then I couldn't use them with my Nikon Speedlights.

[Donald]

I hope some others are seeing this as being as much of a learning experience as I am.

[Loose Canon]

I'd have to buy the Paul C Buff triggers, but then I couldn't use them with my Nikon Speedlights.

That's strange Manfred. With the right PCB triggers (and PC cable) I can fire my Canon speed lights in conjunction with the PCB heads. But of course that's all I can do. No adjustment control (dumb firing only).

And I might add Donald as long as I’m staying out of this? I had a look at your order.

One thing I find totally indispensible with my triggers is total control over the lights from the transmitter/transceiver. Whether in hand or on-camera? Not only power, but groupings, modeling light, mode, power on/off everything. This makes Life so much easier in the studio. If you are building a light scheme one light at a time (typical still life procedure) it’s a pain to have to get up to adjust, turn on/off, test fire, etc. Much quicker and more efficient to do it all from the camera and tethered computer (which btw is something you might want to explore now).

In post #18 (the portrait) I had a light behind the background (mentioned). A key, a fill, and a hair light. Once I get things dialed in, I like to kill the modeling lights for the shoot. However, the BG light modeling light had to stay on so I could line up the victim’s head with the spot. Also, the hair light had to be similarly lined up on the head once the head was aligned with the spot. Once done I could kill the hair model, or light it to check at will. If I had to do that manually, I’d have to move the victim and lower the light to get to it to make any adjustments as it was overhead and could not be accessed except by ladder. Then hope when the victim sat back down everything else was still aligned. Way too much fussing with gear when you are trying to focus on getting the best out of the subject instead.

The key/fill modelers were also killed so as not to annoy the victim. Looks to me like the triggering system you chose will perform these functions nicely. This is why I use the proprietary triggers for my system instead of PW’s or other 3rd party. Even knowing that the PW’s will perform most (but not all) of these functions.

Of course, I don’t typically mix studio heads and speedlights either.

[Donald]

That's strange Manfred. With the right PCB triggers (and PC cable) I can fire my Canon speed lights in conjunction with the PCB heads. But of course that's all I can do. No adjustment control (dumb firing only).

Thanks again, Terry.

Yes, having control of the lights from the camera was something of a priority for me. Lencarta's Wavesync Commander system will allow me to do that. What it won't do is give me any control over the Canon 580 EX II Speedlite, whenever I might want to use that alongside the Lencarta heads. In fact, it will not fit onto the Speedlite at all as the Receiver is a plug-in rather than a Hotshoe

A work around to get the Speedlite to fire (but not to have any control over it) is to have a couple of cheap Yongnuo triggers. One is attached too the Speedlite and the other piggy-backs on the camera hotshoe with the Lencarta trigger. So I will have two triggers on the hotshoe, one sitting on top of the other (the Yongnuo has a hotshoe on top as well). I will then have a dumb Speedlite along with having full control over the Lencarta flashes.

[Loose Canon]

Well...

...I think I would just get another Safari light/receiver myself!

[Donald]

That's Plan B, but I'll just go with this for the moment.

[Manfred M]

That's strange Manfred. With the right PCB triggers (and PC cable) I can fire my Canon speed lights in conjunction with the PCB heads. But of course that's all I can do. No adjustment control (dumb firing only).

Sorry about lack of clarity. I'm writing about the remote capabilities. The SB-900 can be used as a traditional optical slave, while my SB-600 cannot and does not have any PC synch connector, so the trigger has to be on the hot shoe.

With the PocketWizards I can control all my lights from the camera (as long as I stick with no more than three zones). Just about the only thing I've done when I combine the studio lights and Speedlights is to use the latter as an accent light (make it look like a table lamp is lit by hiding a SpeedLight in it.

[Cantab]

I hope some others are seeing this as being as much of a learning experience as I am.

Yes, I find this thread very helpful. My own contribution is that some time ago I perhaps foolishly decided that I should go with speedlights and purchased two Canon radio controlled 600 EXRT's. They both work away from camera as I have a long sync cord running from the camera's hotshoe to the speedlight used for the fill light (plus an umbrella).

Other than running some tests to make sure my set up, etc. worked, I have not put them to a lot of use yet. However, I've recently stepped down from a labour intensive volunteer position and hope to start doing some studio portrait practice this summer.