Copyright © 2008

Jan 09.

 

Have purchased some Ebay radio flash triggers, though the Canon Ettl11 flash system is very good it only works at a limited distance from the camera with line of sight generally required between the triggering flash and its slaves, usually a maximum of 30ft indoors and less outside in bright sunshine.

 

So wanting to experiment a little more bought these triggers, though not retaining the Ettl system (only work manually) they enable flash to be trigger from far greater distance. Not being able to afford PW’s (Pocket Wizards at £300 for two) I got the following ones, a transmitter and two receivers for £21 from Ebay.

Note the transmitter on the right has a wire coming out of it, thats because I adapted the transmitter to give a better signal. These are some of the latter triggers with the receivers having 2 AAA batteries and the transmitter a 12v - 23A type battery, the transmitter also has  an aerial built into the circuit board which can be see in a photo below.

 

The following is taken from a reply I put on to talkphotography’s lighting forum on 19th Jan 2009:

 

Got one of these last week with two receivers, tried rechargeable AAA in the receivers and one worked about 1ft from the transmitter and the other had to be almost touching.

 

Then replaced the rechargeables with normal AAA batteries, one set Duracell the others another make, but both sets were passed there sell by date (yeah I know, but all I had lying around at the time).

 

Now one receiver worked about 6ft away and the other one near to 20ft, A definate improvent, thus showing that the 1.5v duracell batteries are preferable to 1.2v rechargeables (which were 2500 ones).

 

Now decided to mod the transmitter antenna having read numerous article on strobist/flicker etc.

 

Used an old phono, stereo lead, stripped down the outer shell and the earth screening wire to leave the inner wire with a semi-transparent plastic coating. It is about 10" long. I then soldered one end to the terminal described by other contributors, that is the one where the internal circuit board aerial terminates. I didn't touch this circuit board aerial leaving it intact.

 

I then threaded the wire through the hole in the aerial circuit board (wire is insulated so no contact is made) then drilled a small hole in the bottom of the plastic case and the rest of the wire, about 9" just hangs down loose outside the transmitter.

 

I have since tested both receivers with the transmitter on and off camera (test button)and there is a vast improvement in firing of the flash (Canon 580) It will trigger the flash from approx 30ft away with no line of sight and one double and one single brick wall between the transmitter and the receiver/flash.

 

It was my intention to then cut small pieces off the wire to get a prefered length, however its working and working well so i'm not going to bother. I've read about the 1/4 and 1/2 wave lengths etc for the aerial and also that the thickness of the wire aerial also plays a part in the situation. So the internal aerial is still connected as well as the one I've soldered to it at the terminal so they must both be working to some degree, or maybe adding the extra wire has increased the length of the original. (its a long time since I did physics at school)

 

The advantage is that if you try it and it doesn't work you can always unsolder the wire leaving the original circuit board one intact and you just have a small hole underneath the transmitter.

 

Below are some photographs to show this mod.

The wire can be curled up as it hangs down onto the camera and doesn’t appear to alter its triggering abilities. Where it goes through the outer casing of the transmitter I have placed a small quantity of clear silicon both on the inside and outside so should the wire get caught it wont break the solder joint.

 

I have ordered another set of these, as I have 3 Canon flashes and a couple of other makes which I will be able to utilise as all of them will be in manual mode when used this way. The receivers come with pc synch sockets for those Flashes which are so equipped.