Pocket Wizard II with Nikon D80

[AJW390]

Is this possible and safe to do- Nikon D80, 1 800 Alien Bee and SB800 connected via Pocket Wizard II and fired together? I also have to have a Pocket Wizard transreceiver for EACH piece of equipment right....$188 each ? What else do I need? I believe I need a mono plug for the Alien Bee right? Thanks for ANY help!

[Nikonfreak]

absolutely. I do it all the time. For halloween pics, I had a pirate set, I used one AB 800 for primary and had a second PW II connected to the SB800 (use the little cable that comes with the PW for connection to the SB800) in a little pirate chest for illuminating the face as the kid in the pirate costume opens the chest. Great little setup.

Go to Radio Shack and get a 6' mono cable ($4) and plug that into the alien bee and the other end into the flash / camera socket of the PW.

You do need one PW per item fired and one for the camera.

Julio

[AJW390]

Ohhh Julio I was hoping you would answer back....that's why I put it in this section LOL!! Thank you sooo much!

[Bonner]

I think we all need a clarification on this. All AB strobes fire automatically as slaves if they do not have jacks inserted into them. Also, if you are firing the SB800 as a remote, he can go into commander mode and not need a PW. Bottom line, the SB800 will fire the AB, slaved. Right Julio?

[Shane422]

You might check out the Elinchrom Skyports before you fork out the cash for PWs. One transmitter and reciever pair is $190 at B&H. I did a small review of mine here. I like them because they have a long range (400ft) and are small compared to the PWs. I use it for an Alienbee or a SB600. Just depends on what I need and where I am.

[Nikonfreak]

Originally Posted by Bonner

I think we all need a clarification on this. All AB strobes fire automatically as slaves if they do not have jacks inserted into them. Also, if you are firing the SB800 as a remote, he can go into commander mode and not need a PW. Bottom line, the SB800 will fire the AB, slaved. Right Julio?

Yes, you can use the SB 800 to trigger the AB automatically in slave mode. You can trigger the SB 800 using commander mode in the camera and set the SB 800 into your first group and trigger it that way and it's flash will fire the Alien Bee... avoiding the use of pocket wizards altogether.

The Nikon flash system is pretty versatile.

I'll give you one step further... sometimes if I'm on location or studio shoot, I'll set one pocket wizard on ONE Alien Bee and let the rest fire optically. I have to make sure that no one else is going to set off my strobes, but if you don't have 6-7 pocket wizards laying around... it's a nice feature.

Julio