D3 Journal: Building a Portable Lighting System: Triggering Cff-Camera Strobes

Choosing between available flash activation systems gets more complicated with a camera such as the D3 which lacks a 'commander' for CLS / AWL. The SU-800 does seem like the most logical choice:
- most creative strobe use is off camera;
- the SB-800 is much smaller + lighter than SB-800 so it's more ergonomic when used primarily for commanding other CLS units;
- it's cheaper than an SB-800;
- there is no built-in or popup flash on the D3 (should be!)

But, the SU-800 costs $240-260US, and that's 250/320(~78%) of the cost of an SB-800.

Radio poppers are a bit of a kludge conceptually, but self reputed to work really well. Each unit does either Tx or RX and costs ~$175-$225US (has anyone used them, recommend??) They have a large range and are designed to preserve the operation of CLS while overcoming the distance, obstruction and direction limitations inherent with this otherwise excellent system design.

Plain-jane radio triggers of any kind appear to be able to trigger with most any triggerable camera-mount flash or studio strobe unit. You can spend more for better reliability and distance of operation, or can modify (pretty simply, with the right parts and skillz) the inexpensive, generic units. These generic units cost as little as about $15.00@, while at the top end for price, and hopefully reliability, Pocket Wizards run about $200 to $300 each unit (Rx + Tx).

Back to the D3: most studio work is performed within the relatively short distance range of CLS, and so is much of outdoor work. But working in daylight, you are likely to need the additional (apparent) range of the SU-800 when it's bright sunlight, or to increase range. Still, the best of all worlds seems to be a fairly expensive path when considering range, reliability, ergonomics (weight and size), and utility: combine an SU-800 with SB-6/800's and use CLS via Radio-poppers.

I recently pulled the trigger on Cactus V2s (3Rx and 1Tx), which should now be winging their way here from Taiwan (about 6.7% of the distance light travels in 1 second.) To shoot weddings, events and clubs I'll still need a decent bracket and a flash cord.

No longer are PC cords enough: making use of bracket-mounted off camera flash requires a TTL cord, such as the SC-28 (most recent plain TTL/iTTL cord), SC-29 (same as 28, but with a focusing light) or maybe a (now discontinued) SC-17. The 28 + 29 both attach at both ends using the hot-shoe schema, while the SC-17 appears to plug into a socket(PC? 10-pin? 3-pin?). You can use radio triggers to trip the bracket-mounted unit, but I believe it requires that you use the top end models; the Cactus slaves of all stripes are reputed to fire randomly when used at less than 3 to 4 feet from each other or the transmitter.

I really like the simplicity and effectiveness of CLS / AWL. It's frequently 'stupid proof', outthinking the small mental errors of its operators and returning stunning results like 85 to 95% of the time. The fact that it works through the camera's own exposure system means it usually works as well as the camera itself, which with the D3 is quite good (nearly 'stupid proof', again.) Given all this, it might be worthwhile to spend the money and pull the trigger on a more expensive system or combination of systems and parts. It's expensive enough though to want to have enough use to let the equipment pay for itself.

/..