Microsync II

[Sailor Blue]

Originally Posted by SMason

Thanks for the reply Sailor. I couldn't believe it when the customer service for Microsync told me this morning that a 10 percent failure rate was acceptable. Since I have the Alien Bees & White Lightening strobes and I read a lot of positive comments for the Cyber Commander and it looked like I might not get a response to my question here I ordered the Cyber Commander. After your comments I think that I'll get a Yongnuo and give it a try also. Now I wish I had waited a little longer before ordering the Cyber Commander.

I didn't know you had AlienBees & White Lighting and were interested in the Cyber Commander or I would never have suggested the Yongnuo RF triggers.

Buy either the full PCB RF trigger kit or get the PW transmitter for your Cyber Commander. Don't bother with the Yongnuo triggers. The remote power control is worth the difference in price IMHO.

[SMason]

I ordered the Cyber Commander and 3 receivers. If I like it I'll get receivers for the other 2 lights. I thought that I'd give it a try. It might help me with the learning curve. I've got 60 days to decide if I want to keep them. My studio is only 14 X 22 and since I don't have any neighbors RF interference shouldn't be an issue. Now I just have to learn how to use the lights

Steve

[Ed Shapiro]

Jerry-

That is very interesting! Radio Frequency Interference becomes a problem with flash and synch gear when interference from higher power sources such as emissions from radio stations, amateur radio operators, television stations, two way business radios and emergency two way radio services cause the slave triggers to fire- usually not from radio interference from another brand of slave systems or frequencies generated from devices in cameras. Some of theses radio frequencies are called spurious ones sometimes caused by overpowered transmitters or transceivers or poorly shielded transceivers, receivers and transmitters. In the olden days of CB radio, many operators were using illegally overpowered equipment on authorized frequencies with “dirty equipment” which was poorly insulated and shielded, poorly modified and illegally accessorized with home made amplifiers. These folks interfered with all manner of legitimate and vital communications.

Many tall building managements rent space in their rooftops fro two-way radio repeaters used by commercial, police, fire department’s and cell telephone operator’s towers and microwave links. Working with radio slaves can experience utter havoc in or near theses instillations.

Oftentimes there are harmonic of phantom or ghost frequencies that fall on or near other’s main frequencies and cause interference or cross channel which can cause trouble as well.

The F.C.C. and the D.O.T in the U.S. and Canada respectively assign frequencies to various radio services and radio driven appliances so that some of this does not happen. The frequencies assigned to commercial broadcasting stations, emergencies services, aircraft instrument vectors and communications and other vital services and government departments are designated as PROTECTED frequencies which means that if they happen to interfere with UNPORTECTED frequencies- well that is too bad and you have to live with it or take some measure to shield your own gear or discontinue their use when problems arise. It does not , however a reciprocal regulation; if your devices cause problems with protected frequencies you have to discontinue operating your gear and if someone disregards governmental department warnings, cease and desist orders , they can be charged with a federal offense, have their equipment confiscated and even arrested. You will see federal regulations specifics imprinted on all radio driven gear and of course on you radio slaves. In most usual cases- these kinds of things should not happen. I did have some radio trigger receivers that would not operate dependably with certain makes of flash units Oh- the photographic radio bands, remote control and toy bands and recreational gear such as most walky-talky frequencies are TOTALLY UNPROTECTED. So if you are shooting in your studio and the crew in the garbage truck makes a radio call to their dispatcher and your flashes fire like a machine guns - tough cookies- we get no respect!

This business with Canon equipment is indeed a surprisingly interesting to me but it is entirely possible. Sometimes the instillation of a small disk capacitor (.05 uf at 200VDC) across the connector cord between the camera and the radio will calm this down or take it away. Never introduce this capacitance to a hot shoe connection.

There are other anomalies that I can just guess at- the older PWs were either transmitters OR receivers, the latest ones are TRANSCEIVERS.

Thanks for the information- again very interesting! I wonder if the manufacturers are aware if the problems. The output of radio slaves can’t really interferes with vital communications but it is not funny to think what can happen to a pro who arrives on a job and finds
out his gear is acting up for some unknown reason or cause. This happened to me twice in locations near or in foreign embassies.

That is why I always carry a small can with a handful of optical slaves - never used them again but they are still in my camera case.

Ed

[Ed Shapiro]

Jerry-

That is very interesting! Radio Frequency Interference becomes a problem with flash and synch gear when interference from higher power sources such as emissions from radio stations, amateur radio operators, television stations, two way business radios and emergency two way radio services cause the slave triggers to fire- usually not from radio interference from another brand of slave systems or frequencies generated from devices in cameras. Some of theses radio frequencies are called spurious ones sometimes caused by overpowered transmitters or transceivers or poorly shielded transceivers, receivers and transmitters. In the olden days of CB radio, many operators were using illegally overpowered equipment on authorized frequencies with “dirty equipment” which was poorly insulated and shielded, poorly modified and illegally accessorized with home made amplifiers. These folks interfered with all manner of legitimate and vital communications.

Many tall building managements rent space in their rooftops fro two-way radio repeaters used by commercial, police, fire department’s and cell telephone operator’s towers and microwave links. Working with radio slaves can experience utter havoc in or near theses instillations.

Oftentimes there are harmonic of phantom or ghost frequencies that fall on or near other’s main frequencies and cause interference or cross channel which can cause trouble as well.

The F.C.C. and the D.O.T in the U.S. and Canada respectively assign frequencies to various radio services and radio driven appliances so that some of this does not happen. The frequencies assigned to commercial broadcasting stations, emergencies services, aircraft instrument vectors and communications and other vital services and government departments are designated as PROTECTED frequencies which means that if they happen to interfere with UNPORTECTED frequencies- well that is too bad and you have to live with it or take some measure to shield your own gear or discontinue their use when problems arise. It does not , however a reciprocal regulation; if your devices cause problems with protected frequencies you have to discontinue operating your gear and if someone disregards governmental department warnings, cease and desist orders , they can be charged with a federal offense, have their equipment confiscated and even arrested. You will see federal regulations specifics imprinted on all radio driven gear and of course on you radio slaves. In most usual cases- these kinds of things should not happen. I did have some radio trigger receivers that would not operate dependably with certain makes of flash units Oh- the photographic radio bands, remote control and toy bands and recreational gear such as most walky-talky frequencies are TOTALLY UNPROTECTED. So if you are shooting in your studio and the crew in the garbage truck makes a radio call to their dispatcher and your flashes fire like a machine guns - tough cookies- we get no respect!

This business with Canon equipment is indeed a surprisingly interesting to me but it is entirely possible. Sometimes the instillation of a small disk capacitor (.05 uf at 200VDC) across the connector cord between the camera and the radio will calm this down or take it away. Never introduce this capacitance to a hot shoe connection.

There are other anomalies that I can just guess at- the older PWs were either transmitters OR receivers, the latest ones are TRANSCEIVERS.

Thanks for the information- again very interesting! I wonder if the manufacturers are aware if the problems. The output of radio slaves can’t really interferes with vital communications but it is not funny to think what can happen to a pro who arrives on a job and finds
out his gear is acting up for some unknown reason or cause. This happened to me twice in locations near or in foreign embassies.

That is why I always carry a small can with a handful of optical slaves - never used them again but they are still in my camera case.

Ed

[jerryph]

Originally Posted by Ed Shapiro

That is very interesting!
...In the olden days of CB radio, many operators were using illegally overpowered equipment on authorized frequencies with “dirty equipment” which was poorly insulated and shielded, poorly modified and illegally accessorized with home made amplifiers. These folks interfered with all manner of legitimate and vital communications.

Oh God, the "good old days" of the 70's... lol
My father and I used to be one of these people! TUG-8 Power mics, boosted Browning Golden Eagle CB radios, and when that was not enough, custom made linears that were eventually so powerful, when you clicked the mic, the house lights flickered, and wattages exceeding the small local radio station exited a custom made directional beam antennas. Under those conditions, it could only be used in "full blast" mode during the early hours of the morning because his voice came over every television set within 2 miles!

Thanks to the internet, those days are pretty much over a long time now.

Originally Posted by Ed Shapiro

This business with Canon equipment is indeed a surprisingly interesting to me but it is entirely possible.

It is an extremely well known and documented issue. There are companies out there that can modify your flash to reduce or virtually eliminate this RF noise (for a fee, of course). Though all flashes emit some RF, it's just a couple of specific Canon flashes that are the greatest offenders, and that are the ones that generate enough noise to cut the range of the PW down. The popular 580EXII being the worst offender of the lot.

Originally Posted by Ed Shapiro

There are other anomalies that I can just guess at- the older PWs were either transmitters OR receivers, the latest ones are TRANSCEIVERS.

That was the main difference between the Plus and the Plus II's. Ever since the release of the Plus II's, all of them have been transceivers. The "modern" exception to the new lineup is the MiniTT1, which is a small form factor ControlTL unit that is only a transmitter. The latest product is the Plus III and it is also a transceiver.

Originally Posted by Ed Shapiro

I wonder if the manufacturers are aware if the problems.

Not just yes but hell yes... lol

PW was literally bombarded with info in many ways to let them know and they are intimately aware of it.

WestCoast Photo became the first company to publicly just totally disrespect the PW company with a series of YouTube videos comparing the PW to the Radio Popper (another competitor that does something similar) displaying their poor performance.

Here is the thing... it was totally not Canon's fault, and it was not PW's fault. The basic timeline of events is:

In the early 80's 3 university students (one being Jim Clark), created a company called LPA (Lab Partners Associates) and they came around after a need to remotely trigger studio lights from the rafters of an NBA basketball game. Jim and his cohorts created the FlashWizard, a huge, unweildy device that did just that and worked very well. The FCC assigned them frequencies and all was good, the company prospered for decades.

Time passes and decades later, Canon releases a flash with a severe RF issue that did not affect it's performance in any way when used with any Canon equipment. When the transceivers are placed a little further away from the unit, though, all is fairly ok.

Enter the ControlTL units a few years back... the most complex and feature rich units available on the market. They transmit on the same frequency as all other PW units for two simple reasons... this is the range they were assigned decades ago be the FCC, and PW has a firm commitment to their loyal customers, therefore, **ANY** new PW will trigger **ANY** old PW. This was PW's assurance that anything new you purchase from them will work with your older PW units. They did not believe in planned obsolescence, they cared about their client base.

However, though not necessarily stronger in transmission strength, the new ControlTL units transmitted about 10 times more data per stream than the simple Plus II triggers (the entire CLS and iTTL data conversation except for the pulse that was used to measure the scene with was converted into radio waves instead of light pulses)... all on that same frequency range where the offending Canon flashes were sending out their RF interference.

Thanks to this, the PW ControlTL units were basically handicapped in terms of their range.

Canon could have made the 25 cent change or offered a field fix, but that would mean losses in revenue, extra headache and possible loss of customer confidence, so they stayed quiet about it, even when approached by hundreds of angry customers and later, by LPA themselves with scientific documents created by paid 3rd party experts proving where the issue was.

PW could have changed frequencies and been done with it, but that would mean a complete loss of backward compatibility. This was unacceptable, so they worked feverishly to offer alternative solutions. They came out with a list of alternative flash solutions but more directly, created a metallic shielded hot shoe base, a soft material sock, an equivalent hard cover, and set up a series of locations that would accept your 580EXII and permanently fix your flash RF issue for good if you were not satisfied with the two other fixes.

All this was done on their dime and their time.

PW has an excellent record of customer service. I've been to the Burlington VT location, met the people there, shook their hands, and saw and felt their drive to make the best product that resulted in the most satisfied client they could make.

[Ed Shapiro]

Yeah- Perhaps the nice folks at PW sould have left well enough alone and stuck with individual TX and RX units!

Ah so you guys were the ones that came over my dental fillings early in the morning- back in the day. Yes!- actually I had a neighbor who had a linear the size of a washing machine with a beam on the roof. His harmonics were coming over the police system which were LOW VHF at the time. His 11 meter band set was AM so his voice was inaudible but there was intense static. The finally caught him when he started a pirate AM radio station on the AM broadcast band- the the came and took him away. Well- the did not put him in the jail house but the 10,000 fine bent him out of shape real good. I was a bit power crazy myself but I stuck to my 5 legal watts and got into big antennas. To many nut-bars on CB so I studied up and got my amateur ticket, Still have the ticket but I have not been active for decades. My thing was building radios and making old commercial band taxi radios into Oscar enabled rigs- but only the old timers are into that anymore. Ah nostalgia!

QRT- Ed

PS- Just imagine- some fool in another Galaxy is gonna be listening to his stereo system one day, light years away, and he's gonna hear " Braker 19 -10-4 Good buddy- Mother Fetcher comin' at ya- what's goin' down? The poor guys is gonna think that God is mad and is gonna pack in the entire universe.