Update: The first lucky owner from Sydney, Australia sent me a picture of the new PocketWizards (picture credit: michalkriesch.com):
The first PocketWizard MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 units are already shipping from the factory and should be available in mid-December in the US (maybe even earlier in Europe and Canada). The article contains also a detailed run down of the specs and compatibility of the new products.
A new version of PocketWizard Utility is now available. Firmware v2.050 for Nikon MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 was also released.
You can win a D7000 and a set of Nikon PocketWizards at photofocus.com.
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52 Comments
Yes, finally! I’ve been waiting to get a set of these.
Me too! Now I have to change my Christmas wish list.
How is that better than radiopoppers?
What about full Nikon CLS compatibility?
I attended a Joe McNally seminar where he used these and yes, full CLS and they seemed to work well. I asked if he thought they’d be worth it and he said yes, but as a beta tester, he might be a tad biased. Anyway, I’ll get ‘em.
If Joe had to actually buy his own. What would it be? Maybe $2000 for all his flashes…
noob question… will it support/allow auto FP??
Hey admin will the price be the same as the canon pw?
I do not know the price yet, but somebody already posted a link to an UK store
the Canon version is cheaper:
http://www.warehouseexpress.com/search/?q=PocketWizard%20FlexTT5
I’d like to thank the thousands of Canon TT1/5 beta testers who willingly bought an unfinished product, so that we Nikon users wouldn’t have to worry about things like “putting socks over our flashes” etc.
Canon users are still complaining about the fact that the mini and flex just don’t do what it says on the box, not to mention the damage being caused to their flashguns.
Well, contrary to us Nikon fans Canon users are constantly complaining. For all the time in which I’ve been following this site there has never even been one complaint in the comments here.
lol, suuuure.
hear hear…we nikon never complain nor bitch
Huzza! The wait is over, now where’s my credit card
This is the best news I’ve read today.
Great news! Been waiting for those for a while now!
I hope to get three by the end of January. I hope the are going to be in sufficient quantities as to not be on backorder until April.
I’ll buy it if they make a combo deal with a D900 and a AF-s 200mm f/2.8 VRII
About freaking time.
Why the hell is everything Canonized wwaaayyy first?
Partly because the CEO of Pocket Wizard is a Canon shooter, so the first units were prototyped for Canon.
Secondly because the Nikon CLS system is way more sophisticated than the Canon system.
Exactly backwards? It was published somewhere that the main engineer at PW is a Nikon shooter and he said they did Canon first because it was harder to reverse engineer and wanted to make sure it was possible with the harder one first. Can’t find the link right now, but just goes to show you the rumor mill makes nothing more than weird sausage.
Also because there are more Canons out there and likely higher early potential sales. But with the way that botched the initial Canon release, being second ain’t so bad, methinks.
Maybe with the new units I can finally sync at 1/250 (with Pocket Wizards) on my D700 and not get darkening along the edge of the frame.
I run at 1/250th with my PWIIs all day long. No issues.
*edit* And that’s on a D700, too.
I just bought into the radio triggers. They are working for me. Im curious about these triggers. I have heard much ado about them.
QUESTION:
1.) If you have 1 body and 3 flashes, how do you use this system?
One miniTTL + 3 FlexTT5s…?
2.) How about 4 minis? Or 4 Flexes?
Why are these always shown together?
3.) Can you use a flash on top of the mini?
4.) How many units of Nikon flashes can this system support?
answers below
1. For almost full CLS functionality you need the following
1 mini TT1, 2FlexTT5
or 3 FlexTT5
along with 1 sb800/900/su800 and 2 more CLS compatible slaves (sb400/600/800/900)
why ? you still need a flash on camera that has full master capability to take advantage of groups. Without it (the master flash), the remotes will just act as a single group only (either manual as set on the body or with enough luck TTL)
or skip the on-cam flash and use the AC3 controller instead. Waaaaay cheaper and lighter than having an su-800/sb800/900 as master.
miniTT1 is a transmitter only while the FlexTT5 are tranceivers
2. see answer on 1
3. yes
4. as many as you can afford…
On manual only though. But on TTL, I’m not sure, TTL is very far from being reliable when used on remote strobes. On cam, it’s great but off cam it’s far from usable, IMO.
The Rob Galbraith write-up is really informative – fantastic to read how the system 1) adds several features in addition to CLS, 2) allows for so much compatibility and control re: studio units and even Canon flashes, and 3) dramatically reduces power consumption / recycle time (all while getting rid of pre-flashes). Exciting.
3) I’ve read this too, but I don’t know how PW can achieve this.
The flashes still have to pre-fire in order to show what their relative power output is….
Sure, the master doesn’t have to communicate via bursts, but what about the remotes?
I don’t know if what you said is correct, but just thinking about it, the flashes probably send an electronic signal during the “dead air” time as well as pre-flash. If that were true, the PW would pick up the signal.
Your question is interesting because indeed how would the master know what the slaves were set to unless it takes time to pick up the status. Then again, this seems to have been worked out.
it only removes the pre-flash associated with the master-slave communication. But if the group is configured as TTL, there will still be 1 preflash for TTL power calculation.
Now if the group is configured as Manual, no preflash is made as the PW intercepts the signal from the body and instructs the on-cam strobe not to do the pre-flash.
Since communcations between the master-slave strobes is done via PW (RF), there is no need for the preflash anyway. This is in contrast to the radio popper system which still requires the preflash for communication.
To confuse even further, the on cam master is set as master while the remotes are set to regular TTL (as if it is on-board the camera).
At LONG last it’s released, but one of my main gripes, the plastic foot, remains. That and their price are what keeps me from buying these.
FINALLY! Want’s the precious!
Seems they’re in-stock in Europe already!
http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-PocketWizard-FlexTT5-Nikon/p1519761
I got tired of waiting for this crap. I got myself a set of Radiopopper PX’s and they are absolutely flawless.
Only JUST came out in Europe – we essentially had no Radio-TTL-CLS options here until then.
I’m with Jailhouse Shuffle. I got the PX units and am more than happy. Controlling the strobes from in camera on my D700 and using the pop-up is as easy as it gets.
this took so long it isn’t even funny. Nikon probably said to pocketwizard a prompt release doesn’t fit our business model..lol
What I don’t understand is why they don’t just build Radio into flashes to begin with. AT LEAST include a standard modular port so the units aren’t so bulky when a third-party is attached.
Its not like Nikon doesn’t charge enough for high-end flashes and licensing the technology wouldn’t be that expensive if PW could get on board every single Nikon SB-800/900 style flash.
Its kind of like extension tubes — how many DECADES has it been since an update? So much tech has changed. Nikon can get a third party to make them at specification even if it had a third-party label. But does Nikon do this? Nope. No extension tubes and 2 years just for PW to learn Nikon’s system very likely because of lack of teamwork by two leaders who should recognize theirselves as such and take better responsibility for working together to bring technology forward on a decent pace.
I think the delay was not caused by learning Nikons stuff, but rather focusing on fixing the issues with the Canon units before launching the Nikon stuff. The plan was to launch the Nikon PW’s last summer . . . so a year and a half later, wow.
so if i have the older PW Plus 2, will it work with this?
Yes.
Not trying to be annoying, but what is the difference between this thing and radiopoppers???
Last time I checked radiopoppers are only converting the on-camera flash light signal to radio signal and then back to light signal on the flash so CLS is fully compatible as well as any future evolution.
Pocket Wizards I think are trying to reverse engineer the CLS communications with all the issues that implies.
Am I wrong?
PW is trying to ENHANCE the function of CLS. The are making subtle but important changes (to some professionals). RadioPoppers pass through the signal, but PW decodes, enhances, and controls — their key difficulty is to do this with no loss of backwards compatibility and with no loss of CLS instructions while AT THE SAME TIME speeding up the system compared to CLS and even the previous PW setup.
In this sense, PW is adding value to the CLS system by asking new questions, whereas RP is a simple solution to the old question. The PW enhancements are too complicated for me to explain, but Rob Galbraith seems to do a good job: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-9884-9903-9907
For most people I just assume that RadioPoppers are completely satisfactory unless you need the slight enhancement or love the PW system (which is extensive).
I was excited to get the miniTT1 for high speed sync using the PW Plus ii’s that I already have, but I guess I was dumb in missing the fact that I need the speedlites to sit on flexTT5′s. Budget = ruined.
I heard that the mini works with the PlusIIs. Full backwards compatibility. Simply mini and flex are being released at the same time. Isn’t this correct?
In response to Banned’s question-the PW mini and flex don’t use any sort of light signal, simply radio info. The radio poppers use radio as a sort of go-between for the IR signal of Nikon’s CLS. The mounting mechanism for the radio popper receiver uses a bracket so the radio poppers IR transmission hits the receiving eye of the speedlight directly. I have yet to figure out how the radio poppers transmitter receives the signal from the nikon sending flash
though (that part is not done via IR I think)
Does it work with old pw plus? I mean the firsr version of receiver
Thanks
Tried it for Canon version and sold it all.
It’s all work fine, don’t get me wrong, especially the AC3 which put on top of TT1 above hot shoe.
The problem for my Canon is ETTL is not smart enough. They tend to pop the flash to the middle grey and make the subject bright. So when I shoot people on location, the flash pop and make their face bright and FLAT.
I highly recommend for photographers who want a bright and clear look. But for the one who want to control ratio and make more dramatic look, manual control still the best way.
I’m going back to PW PlusII and save $752 for TT1, 2 TT5 and AC3.
For anyone who loving it, plug TT5 and TT1 to USB and run PW software. You can set Channel 1 for TTL and channel 2 for classic mode so you can use it with PW PlusII.