Fstoppers Nikon Pocket Wizard FlexTT5, MiniTT1, And AC3 Review

Fstoppers Nikon Pocket Wizard FlexTT5, MiniTT1, And AC3 Review

Patrick and I have been in contact with LPA Design (the company that makes Pocket Wizards) for a few months now and we were excited to hear that they would be sending us a few beta units of the unreleased Nikon FlexTT5, MiniTT1, and AC3 units. Our website is not about reviewing gear but we did want to push these units. I called up Sigma and asked for a loaner 800mm 5.6 lens and Patrick planned a shoot that involved every SB-800 and SB-80DX that we own. Check out the video below, and then scroll down to read detailed info about the shoots and check out the high res images. If you enjoy this content, follow us on Twitter to stay updated when our next video is released.

 

The 800mm Portrait By Lee Morris

Initial Tests
When I first heard that we were getting these units I knew that I wanted to shoot with a huge telephoto lens. The main thing that Pocket Wizard has going for it over other triggers is their reliability and their range. Before the shoot, Patrick and I went outside and tested the FlexTT5 VS a Plus II Transceiver in terms of range. At the time of the test we did find that the new units were not quite as reliable as the older Plus II's and we had a few other quirky issues. After the test we learned that there was a firmware update and it seemed to fix many of the issues. We didn't have enough time to run the test again before the shoot but since we did not have the actual shipping units anyway (we had older betas) running full tests would not be fair at this point.

High Speed Sync (FP mode)
Another key feature that these units have that standard Wizards do not have is the ability to sync strobes above your cameras highest sync speed. I had hoped to shoot in very bright direct sunlight at 1/8000th of a second and light my model with a single SB-800. What we found, however, was that even though you can sync beyond your sync speed, you are loosing flash power as you raise your shutter speed. We did not run precise tests of this but we learned that you seemed to get flash power proportional to ambient light as we went up in shutter speed. For example; normally if you shoot anywhere from one second up to 1/250th of a second, your flash will effect the image in the same way (a full power flash is full power). Once you go into high speed sync mode, however, your flash power decreases as the shutter duration gets quicker. This means that a full power flash at 1/500th of a second is more powerful than a flash at 1/2000th of a second because not all of the flash is reaching the sensor. Long story short, it appeared to us that you are not actually gaining flash power by raising the shutter speed above 250th so it wasn't worth doing for my shoot.

As a side note, these new PW units do have a mode called Hyper Sync which falls between shutter speeds of 1/250 and about 1/500 that DOES give you one extra stop of flash power that isn't using the FP mode I just described. It's pretty complicated to explain but it does work and is most effective with 2.8 lenses so I wasn't able to use it in my shoot with the Sigma lens since it was a 5.6 lens.

Getting The Lens
When I called Sigma and asked for a lens I actually requested the 200-500mm 2.8 lens. It's a 30k lens so I knew it was a long shot. I was really excited when they said they would let me use it for the video but a few days later I got a call that they only had a Canon mount version available. Instead, they sent me an 800mm 5.6 which is still quite a lens.

The Shoot
We got out to the park 1 hour before the model was due to show up to scout out the best location. It was much harder than I thought it would be because we were actually looking for backgrounds that were a quarter mile away that would look good extremely out of focus. We would pick a spot that we thought would work but when we took a test shot we would notice that the bokeh was ugly or wouldn't register as we would have imagined. We finally settled on an awkward location that required the model to stand on a bench and I was forced to shoot in between a tree and a canon. As the sun went down we were able to move to a much simpler location where I could take full body vertical images. I love the full body shots but I love how different the bokeh looks in the first horizontal images.

Final Thoughts
For my test the pocket wizards did very well firing about 95% of the time at about 200ft. For me, being the simple type of guy that I am, I am most excited that these units lock directly onto the hot shoe of my off camera flash. Up until now, I have had to use sync cords which are the most unreliable piece of gear that I own. Shooting in "auto TTL" is something that I will try to work into my wedding photography in the future but for commercial gigs I am going to keep everything manual. Shooting in high speed sync mode only seems useful to me if you want to take a shallow depth of field shot in bright sunlight and so at this point, I don't think I will use that feature much.

 

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The 13 Flash Dunk By Patrick Hall

When the guys at Pocket Wizard sent us the new Flex beta units for Nikon I was really excited.  I rely on the Pocket Wizard Plus II units for every single wedding event I shoot as well as every commercial shoot.  There are several features that the new Flex and Mini systems have that really sparked my interest including being able to control my remote flashes from my camera, gaining auto TTL over long distances, and even being able to squeeze out an extra stop of power with the new Hyper Sync Mode.  But since I have already invested a lot of money into my own arsenal of Pocket Wizard Plus II units, I wanted to make sure the new Flex units were completely compatible with the previous models I already owned.

The Concept
Since Lee was going to test the range, I wanted to test their compatibility with older units. One idea I have had for a long time was to photograph a sports player at the peak of their action with a lot of flashes going off in the background.  This idea could be the perfect shoot to test both units together.  The setup was simple yet admittedly pretty ridiculous:  a couple of soft light sources triggered with the new Flex units lighting my subject from camera right, and about 10 flashes being triggered with Plus II units in the distance to make up the background.  With this setup I could test both the TTL and manual remote control features of the Flex system while still checking to see that my manually set background flashes were being fired through the Plus II triggers.

The Setup
Local model, designer, and basketball player Chelsie Ravenell was excited to donate his skills to the project and we gathered the Fstoppers crew to help build a studio set within a local basketball court.  Lee and I own 13 on camera flashes between the 2 of us and I didn't want to waste one by putting it on top of my camera so I wound up using the soon to be released Pocket Wizard AC3 zone controller which essentially acts like an SB900 or SU800 in commander mode without having to have one actually mounted on my camera's hotshoe.  The AC3 worked great and allowed me to switch off my key lights when testing the background as well as set the key lights to auto and manual when it was time to lock in the exposure on Chelsie.  The other issue I had was trying to build a perfect exposure within the camera when so many lights were being triggered.  Placing SB800s near the bleachers and firing directly towards the camera was inadvertently spilling light onto the background and not giving me the dark background exposure I envisioned.  So my solution was simply to expose Chelsie as well as I could, knock out 95% of the gym's ambient light, and position the background lights so they would still appear to be coming from the crowd and allowing me to control the level of their spill later in photoshop.

How Did They Work
If I were shooting in manual mode with the older Wizards it would have been much easier because I would have simply set all of my flashes to SU-4 (slave mode) and they would have all fired when they saw another flash. Since I was controlling the flash from the new units this would not work because the of the pre-flashes that go along with Nikons iTTL system. I really thought the Pocket Wizards would have reliability issues because one, we were using 13 units, and two they were all placed near each other in a small gym.  I've learned the hard way many times that the more complex you make your photoshoot the more chances you allow for something to fail.  Surprisingly the new Flex units fired about 95% of the time and the background lights fired about 70% of the time.  This is not bad for a set of beta units!  The main issue with the older units was probably a bad sync cable since a single flash would usually not fire every now and then.  Obviously there would be very few times that you would need to fire 13 flashes so I view this test to be a huge success considering how complex the setup ultimately was. The final 3 or 4 frames were retouched in Photoshop by the talented Jaymes Poudrier. 

Final Thoughts
I'm really excited to know that my large investment in Plus II units has not become obsolete and that the Flex (and mini) units work exactly as designed by the guys at Pocket Wizard.  These units are a bit expensive but the technology is the best out there.  I can only imagine the possibilities these new triggers offer for other shoots where your control of light isn't so well calculated like at wedding receptions, live events, or fast moving sports.  I really think the auto TTL feature will shine in spontaneous situations where as on my shoot I primarily controlled the flash output remotely in manual. Since I'm a Charleston wedding photographer, I can't wait to take these units out and use them at my receptions...more on that later :)

 

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For all of you that prefer Youtube here is another version of the same video.


 

If you have any specific questions about either shoot please feel free to leave them in the comment section below and we will personally answer them. We hope that you guys had as much fun watching this video as we did creating it.

Written by Patrick Hall. Patrick Hall is the cofounder of Fstoppers.com and a wedding photographer in Charleston, South Carolina

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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88 Comments
Previous comments

Bit of an off beat question here but what brand is that dolly that was sitting next to Patrick on the gym floor and then presumably used for the pan shot of all the strobes? It looks SUPER portable!

Thanks guys. Will you be showing off the HSS at all?

@Alton, it's the indislider and we love it. Only $100!

hey guys love this post and yes i do read the extra "crap" lol

one question as Pocket Wizard has not answered for me yet, that you "might" know.
the AC3 unit, is it one fits all?? as in the one made for canon will work for the nikon flex units or are they making one for nikon only?
i received four flextt5 for my sb900's but cant seem to find the AC3 all boxes say "canon"

Trev

sorry to post again, but PocketWizard DID get back to me, funny not to long after my post here.

So they are working on a AC3 version for Nikon and should be in stores Feb/Mar in case anyone else cares to know.

Nice location Lee! I recently visited and knew it was similar to what i saw on fstoppers... and i was right! Charleston South Carolina:)

Guys, awesome info and presentation as always. You guys are seriously giving back so much I pick up a lot of great info and techniques from you and the other guys on your site. Plus I'm posting a link to your site usually once a week.

If you're ever in Melb/AUS you guys can use my studio, equipment, models what ever you need :)

Once question - is there an equivalent system for Canon shooters ?

Cheers :)

Thanks Kon! Yes the canon version has been out for a long time now. I hear they are far less reliable though.

the video is Cool as usual! (like i mentioned @ my twitter thats one bad a## lens):)

I have a question, i know this is going to sound very stupid. Any opinion is greatly appreciated. I am a nikon shooter and mostly use CLS for my shooting. I just got 2 PW plus II units. (forgot to mention im a poor graduate student :) ) Still they are unopened. I am kind lost whether to keep plus II units or not.Also I got a strato receiver as a gift.

To cut the story short should i sell Plus II and get a pair of Nikon flex and mini or keep plus II. My mind is wondering and love to get your thoughts on that.

Keep up the good work!

Happy New Year Fstoppers!

My advice is to keep the Plus II units for now. If you are on a budget you shouldn't spend the money on the top of the line PWs units. You may even want to invest in cheaper but equally powerful flashes like the Nikon 80DX on ebay. Who knows when these Flex units will hit the US market and the units we have still have some software tweaking. Enjoy the Plus IIs while you have them and you can always sell them used for about 90% of their original worth.

Awesome video, loved both shots.  I've got (3) SB-800's and (5) SB-80DX's, (1) PW Transmitter, (3) Transceivers Plus II and (2) of the 16 channel flat receivers (which I love because they are smaller and flat and velcro easier to the top of the speedlights)... anyway, my question is, will the older flat PW work with the new Mini TT1 and FlexTT5?  And will the SB-80DX work with the High speed sync?

Thanks Patrick.

Currently i own one SB900 and one SB600(should get a universal adapter to add a pc sync) . I will keep the PWII. I should add SB80DX as you suggested. Thank again for replying!
Kudos!

Venura

awesome work !!!!!!!
superb, superb, superb !!!

Excellent video- I really enjoy watching and love the site.

The final clip I found extremely funny. Great job, as always!

honestly, the 800mm shot was quite dul, loads of expensive equipment for such average shots, but on the other hand the basketball shot was amazing, fantastic shots, but not need for 13 pocket wizards in a closed controlled environment like that, 2 PW's and some sync cords or cheap eBay optical devices would achieve the same result...

sometimes we get too excited about gear and forget our real purpose, pics!!!

great blog by the way!!!

Great BTS video as always especially the basketball one. But honestly I can't really see the point of using the 800mm. I mean if it's just short DOF and compression why not simply use a fast prime like a 85 1.4 or a decent zoom like the 70-200mm on 200mm with 2.8?

Nevertheless great stuff guys!

what a great bookeh from that 800mm lens, awesome video too!

I think the whole point of using the 800mm was to demonstrate the range of the new pws? "The main thing that Pocket Wizard has going for it over other triggers is their reliability and their range" and "Since Lee was going to test the range...."

Ah yeah Pete that does make a whole lot of sense, it however also makes me feel kinda stupid haha.

Yeah we weren't able to test every feature so we just focused on Distance, Reliability, Compatibility with older units, and wireless power control with the AC3.

Love the shoot guys, and lots of excellent information/tips in the post/comments. A side question about this shoot though; what equipment was used for filming the shoot (Camera/Lens)? Thanks in advance!

How was the background darkening accomplished in PS for the basketball shoot? I'm a newbie at this sort of thing, but it looks very cool.

Thanks. Great shoot!

dumb question: how do you detach the removable shaft on the softlighter? i just bought one and i cant seem to figure it out. thanks for the help.

can i use highspeed sync in manual mode? or TTL only?

You can use it manual too.

thanks Lee. will try it on my next shoot. it seems TTL is not that reliable, most of the time its over expose, btw im using the Nikon version D700.

This is awesome. I have been wanting to get the new PocketWizard TTL system, but I am lacking in the moneys :-(

hi patrick and lee, can you share what umbrellla you are using?

hi patrick and lee, can you share what umbrellla you are using?

We linked to it above, it was basically the photex softlighter.  Check out the Fstoppers gear guide on the right for the specific model.  

Awesome job guys. Patrick, did you have any issues with shutter curtain shadows at 1/250th? I've got a D3, TT1, TT5 for speedlights and Plus 2's for my Alienbees. I get a slight shutter curtain shadow when trying to trigger both the TT5's and Plus 2's. I've had to slow my shutter to 1/160". I know the PocketWizard software has some options about controlTL channel vs standard channel priority at sync but I've not had a chance to play with it. I just wondered if you had to do anything special to get both the old and new systems to play nice together.

I did not have any trouble no.  Not sure what the specific settings were but everything worked out fine.  I wasn't mixing nikon flashes with alien bees though

Probably because his speedlites moved into HSS. Studio strobes can't pulsate through the curtain like speedlites thus resulting in a shutter shadow.

Great work!!!
love it;)

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP::: I am new to photography, I own a Nikon d7000 an Nikon d40x. With an Nikon Speedlight SB600. My question is: What type of Flash trigger do I need to purchase I am so lost right now. Some people tell me to get the cybersync and some tell me to get the Pocketwizard Mini/Flex. Please Please help me.
Thanks for all the help I can get
Alisa

Great article guys! I wasn't entirely familiar with the pocket wizards and how they worked but after a few hours of reading a videos I think I've gathered a round understanding of the different products that PocketWizard offers. 
I'm definately putting the AC3, mini TT1 and the Flex TT5 on my list of gears to get. Indeed they are a tad bit on the costly side but IMO professionalism takes a solid investment. 

will the ac3 and tt1 on the camera work with the pocketwizard plus II attached to the flash or do you need the tt5 flex attached to the flash for it to work

thank you this is fantastic

great work. cool How To in the video. Thank you!
Cheers, Hannes