Radio Trippers

Okay, so I don't yet have a flash, but I am asking Santa for a 580EX II for Christmas. Instead of waiting until I get the thing to realize I need accessories for it, I am looking and assembling a list now. I am pretty happy with my list, but I have been driving my wife crazy with all of my photography talk lately.

I have been looking for good radio trippers, and of course the first answer of most people is PocketWizards. Me being who I am, I don't like to use what everybody else uses just because "they" use it. I like to have reasons behind my purchases, so I research and learn all I can about the options out there. I first liked the Elinchrom El Skyports, then I found out about Radio Poppers. Perfect solution I thought, until I realized I needed at least 2 flashes, one as the master and one as the slave, which led me to thinking about getting either Canon's master unit, or a 430EX II to be the slave, but that brings the issue of the lower power slave.

As I was about to just go back to the Skyports, I saw (again) the Paul C. Buff CyberSync units. I like the Cyber Commander unit they have in the works, which is why I liked the Skyport system, because of the software they have, but I don't want to use a laptop every time I want to adjust a light. Paul C. Buff doesn't have the Cyber Commander out yet, but I am going to talk to them on Monday and find out everything it can do. I know it can control all the lights they make, and they mentioned a bit about a speedlite. Not sure if it can control the power, or simply name the speedlite in the Commander so you know what you adjusting. I will keep you posted on it though.

I am pretty settled on the CyberSync, unless I hear some bad news on Monday. They seem to do all I need to do, which is trip a slave off camera with a reliable and relatively inexpensive radio tripper with a decent range.