Richmond, US
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> We have a $3,000US camera, with probably $6,000 in lenses and stuff, and we are agonizing over $100 to $200 for a wireless remote?
Yeah, I know what you mean.
I have a Hahnel Combi TF remote (B&H\'s listing here). It's $90. It served my purpose when it arrived. It has 100m range, it's RF so it is immune to ambient light problems. It isn't too expensive. But I've had it for several years now and I find that it's lacking in several ways. First, both components (transmitter and receiver) have batteries. No big deal, but there is also no way to turn off the transmitter - there's a big round button, and if you press it, it transmits. No problem while it's on a lanyard around my neck, but a big problem in my camera bags. It uses some relatively odd batteries - I keep a spare in the bag and a picture in my phone because I've had to buy them a couple of times unexpectedly, inevitably far from a big city where they might be easily found. The receiver has an off switch, but it is apparently not so hard to have it depressed in the camera bag too. I would have thought that it would be easier to protect than the transmitter, but operationally this is not the case. (Fortunately, because it is self-powered, it does not drain the host camera battery.) The receiver takes CR2 batteries, which I have discovered aren't particularly inexpensive ($9). Did I mention that the transmitter requires a very small screwdriver to access the battery compartment? At first this was no problem - I'm a model railroader and own hot and cold running tiny tools. But as it happens I don't carry them into the wilds on a night photo shoot, so a couple of weeks ago when the transmitter battery turned up dead, I had to scramble to find a tiny screwdriver just to change the battery that I already had in the bag. To add insult to injury, I've been protecting both parts with plastic boxes - this makes them much larger than they should be, but has the advantage of pretty much guaranteeing that they don't eat the batteries by accident. The tiny screwdriver also requires its own little case in my TT Cable Management 10... Between the boxes, the screwdriver, the extra batteries, etc, and the backup MC-30 that I have to carry, it's taking up a large part of the CM10.
But now I discover that the transmitter is becoming unreliable.
I'll limp along for a bit, but I'm saving my pennies for Pocket Wizards. I'm sick of the endless litany of little problems. I want to know bloody well that when I reach in there to use it, it's gonna work. The fact that they also work with iTTL flash is of course a factor too, but the main thing is that I need a RF remote for the equestrian stuff and I need a remote in general for tripod based work. _____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member
My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!
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