Off camera flash equipment - A review.

ChronicLines

ChronicLines

Member
This is probably going to do really shitty on here, but maybe some of you can benefit from it.

Paul C Buff CyberSyncs

Well I got my CyberSyncs in today at the low price of around $300 for a trigger and 3 receivers.

What comes in the box:

d2h0469gt8.jpg


A miniphone to miniphone cord.

A miniphone to male PC cord.

A miniphone adapter for a larger plug (not sure on the size, chances are you won't need it.)

And in the Transmitter box you get a male PC to miniphone as well.

Connections: Makin' dem flashes make light.

Here's the receiver.

d2h0499xz7.jpg


Like I said, the receiver comes with a miniphone to miniphone that I ripped apart and soldered a Vivitar connector to make two Vivitar sync cords. If you're not as brave, you're gonna need to pony up $14 for this cord - http://www.flashzebra.com/wizardcables/vivitar.shtml .

Here it is firing a 285HV if you're in doubt.

d2h0501en5.jpg


Here's the transmitter.

d2h0506sl2.jpg


The transmitter comes with that cord pictured so you can attach it to your bronny, hassy, or XA in my case.

Size:

On my N90s.

d2h0474py2.jpg


Compared to a 285HV and an SB-28.

d2h0467xd9.jpg


I was pretty impressed on the size of these, I imagined the transmitter to be bigger and the receivers to be smaller, but no complaints really.

Batteries.

d2h0492zg5.jpg


Batteries in both the receiver and transmitter are replaceable. The receiver takes 2 AA's and the transmitter takes one 3 volt CR2450 button cell.

Range, the important part.

d2h0450qg7.jpg


That little glare in the middle was all three of my flashes. Zero misfires from this distance. Could keep up at around 3fps.

This is pretty impressive coming from ebay slaves that work intermittently from 10 feet away.

Complaints: The gheyz.

No lanyard? What is that shit? Luckily I had a couple wrist straps laying around. You can open the battery door, put the loop of the lanyard around the prong for the door, close the door and enjoy.

Other than that, I saved a bunch of money over PW's.

If anyone has any questions, just holler at me if you want some sort of test done or something.
 
Damn, those look awesome, great write up. So basically you enabled long distance transivers for 3 flashes? You should put this under the review section.
 
Whoa this is great, im not sure how many kids here are to the point where they're needing Pdubs or anyother triggers so it might be hard to apreciate but this is a great review, i think cybersyncs are a super good alternative to pocket wizards especially for the price
 
Good review, sounds like a good deal - not sure what the comparable price would be here in the UK but I would suspect it would be around £300. Certainly will be looking into something like this for my XTi at some point in the next year (probably will just go with a standard external flash though).
 
I've been getting fed up with my ebay slaves (those little peruvians never flash at the right time tehe). I had to modify my slaves to work with the hv. I'm interested to see if you've ever used ebay slaves and how they compare to these.
 
Ebay slaves have nothing compared to these. My ebay slaves got to the point that I couldn't meter with them because they would fire at different times and my meter would only pick up the first flash, such bullshit.

Buy these, they are such a good deal compared to PW's since most people don't even need the range they offer.

Oh and hey, a little karma never hurt anyone... lol.
 
The question for me becomes: how are they with interference/other photographers/indoors? that's where the real test is....

For that amount of dough I would've gone with two PW's...... seems SUPER expensive for a questionable product...... There's ebay remotes that'll do the trick for $50 per trans/reciever pair........
 
that said, you did a good job reviewing them, and the field test is a good first step. see how they work in a super long hallway with metal roofs though, and then through walls/doors at closer ranges.

i just question how well they'd hold up in day to day hard use.
 
I'm not sure if you read everything very carefully.

I HAD ebay slaves and they honestly only worked from about 10 feet away and I couldn't even meter them properly because they would sync at different speeds, therefore they would only meter the first flash, thus an overexposed image. They suck, regardless of what mod you do to them they will never compare to these.

Two PW's? What would that do for me? Allow me to use one flash off camera for a total of around $360. I would need FOUR pocket wizard units to equal what I have here, total that up and you get around $700 used. Versus $300 for what I have here seems like a pretty good deal to me, I'd rather spend the extra $400 on glass my friend.
 
so what your trying to tell me is you can actually take pictures now?

did you print out the pics we took halloweeen
 
You know these are the radios that alien bees sell right? I know you know photography but it seems as though you don't know where this product comes from.http://www.alienbees.com/remotes.html

I'm going to assume that AlienBees endorse a good product as although there strobes aren't the best on the market they are fantastic for the money and have always been reliable.This is a good review as I was planning to buy some PWs or Skyports (even though there has been trouble with firing 285HVs). But these seem like an inexpensive yet reliable way of starting out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top