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THIS IS AN OFFICIAL WARNING – DUE TO TECHNICAL CONTENT, THIS POST WILL ONLY BE OF INTEREST TO PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO USE POCKET WIZARD TRIGGERS WITH THEIR NIKON CAMERAS – ANYONE EXPECTING THE USUAL STUFF PLEASE ENJOY A POST FROM THE ARCHIVE

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Following a mind-destroying battle with technology to get my new Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 to trigger my Nikon D3s, I’ve finally had a breakthrough.  After doing everything that seemed logical to get it up and running, I was still left with a situation where a single press of the shutter on the trigger camera would cause a slight pause then a burst of five frames on the remote camera, at a slow frame rate (around 5fps).  Whatever I did, I either got the same result or just no response at all from the remote camera.

After sending an email to the technical support line, Ian Ray replied with instructions on how to get my toys up and working.  If you’ve had the same problems that I had and, like me, haven’t been able to find any info on the problem anywhere else, here’s what I was told.

“There’s a special caveat that needs to be considered when using a remote FlexTT5 as a remote trigger, when it’s also set for it’s default ControlTL mode of operation.

When using the radio set to receive on ControlTL channels, and to communicate with the camera’s TTL systems, the radio can’t listen for an incoming radio trigger while also communicating with the camera’s metering system. This metering system is “awake” and talking to the radio whenever the shutter and aperture are displayed on the top of the camera’s LCD display. This shuts off after about 5-8 seconds, at which point you’ll be able to trigger the remote camera again. This mode of operation is useful if you’re triggering the remote camera, and then want the camera to then relay a TTL signal to a remote speedlight; however, for a simple solo remote camera configuration, I’d recommend the following instead:

To disable the communications that stop the radio from being able to listen for incoming trigger signals, you can put the receiving radio in to Basic Trigger Mode via the PocketWizard Utility, under the Misc tab. I usually recommend setting up Configuration C2 for this purpose, so that you can switch quickly between configurations in the field. Once you’ve enabled Basic Trigger Mode, and configured the radio to receive on a Standard Channel, you should be able to trigger the camera as quickly as you can press the test button on the remote in your hand.”

With this information, I managed to get the remote camera firing quickly and responsively but still had the problem of a single press of the trigger camera shutter producing a ten frame burst from the remote camera.  After talking this through with top Getty sports photographer Richard Heathcote, we narrowed this down to a problem with the length of the trigger signal ie the trigger was sending out a pulse that was too long (around 1/2 second at a guess) causing the remote to assume I still had the shutter depressed.  This in turn resulted in the full-on gatling gun effect.  This would be fine for most sporting situations but if I’m in a press conference and wanting to use a remote camera, I don’t want to cause Brenda to stop her speech and enquire “Ere Phil, who the fark own’s that wretched carmera?” Looking through the software that controls the modules, there was no reference anyway to a facility to adjust the delay.  Once more, I was stumped.

Thankfully, Ian replied once more to my further queries with this mail;

“We’ve been getting a couple of reports of similar issues, and we’ve confirmed that there are some timing issues with the sync ports on the Nikon FlexTT5 units when used for remote camera triggering.

Our developers are currently aware of this issue, and we’re going to be reviewing this operation in the very near future. In the meantime, I hope that the current firmware will allow for acceptable operation while we work on a more elegant solution!”

So there we go.  At least I have some vindication in not being an eejit (at least relating to the triggers).  Now that the ball’s in their court, we just need to make sure that they bring this fix out and sooner rather than later.  If you’re having similar issues, I hope this has helped but, more importantly, I hope you write to pocketwizard’s support team to add your voice to the request to get this sorted.  Let’s just hope that PocketWizard follow the words that are written on their own product; “Test/Learn”.

Update – 22 July 2011

This morning, I received an email from Ian at Pocket Wizard;

“Hi Leon,

I’ve got some good news, and some bad news in regards to this specific issue.

The good news is that we’re currently testing a firmware fix for this specific problem, which so far appears to have taken care of it!

The bad news is that we’re still working on some other areas of this firmware which require a bit more attention before we can launch another firmware release, and at this point I don’t have an exact estimate as to when that might be. Optimistically, I’d say we’re looking at weeks, and not months from now – but I can’t say for certain just yet, as there are a few other things that still require some wrapping up.

At the moment, with the current 2.146 beta firmware ( http://www.pocketwizard.com/support/downloads/beta ), the only workaround that I’ve found is to hold the transmitting radio’s TEST button slightly longer than a “tap”, which appears to make the camera fire a little less than the burst that you’ve described. In my latest test a few minutes ago, I can control the burst down to about 3-4 frames. Or, to use the camera in single-shot mode.

I definitely apologize for the problem in the meantime – but we should have a fix available in the not too distant future!”

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Update – 17 August 2011

STOP THE PRESS!  I think they’ve only gone and done it!

After an email from London royal photographer Mark Cuthbert to inform me of a new beta firmware that was now available, I downloaded V2.160 through the Pocket Wizard utility and it APPEARS to have fixed it.  Flashes are firing consistently while, best of all, the remote camera seems to be triggering accurately and in perfect sync with the trigger camera.  Brilliant!  I’ll temper my gushing excitement with these two provisos;

• These things should have worked from the start.  They delay in releasing them was to ensure that the company didn’t have the same problems that they had with the Canon release and yet it still went wrong.  When there are cheaper products on the market that do appear to work perfectly well, the customer will only pay over the odds for a quality product and quality customer service.
• While I’m happy to report that the issue seems to have been finally addressed, it’s up to Nikon-using PW owners to test this beta firmware out now and ensure it is right before they rest on their laurels.  It’s time to get downloading and testing, people!

Like a bolt from the sky from a flaky A380, my Picture Editor decided to throw me a challenge in the shape of the WRC Wales Rally.  Up to this point, my only experience of motor-sport rally was climbing in the trees of Sherwood Forest when my Dad took me to watch the Lombard RAC rally many moons ago.  My only actual memory of it now is seeing all the gimps in Halfords-bedecked Fiestas racing each other out of the car park at the end of the day.

The first call was to other photographers to find out who else was covering it and to gain any advice that I could on how to begin my coverage.  With one photographer only offering “It’s great for your mileage expenses”, I finally found a colleague who would be both covering the four days and was prepared to offer a whole selection of hints and tips; Mr Alastair Grant from the Associated Press.  After booking hotels all over the route of the rally around central and southern Wales, I headed out to Cardiff to collect my accreditation before heading north to Aberystwyth.  An evening’s discussion of routes, plans, angles and thoughts later and I was ready to tackle my first day; “Sweet Lamb”.

Never having covered the WRC before, I didn’t know what to expect regarding information and had assumed that I just rocked up to the area and wandered around until I found a corner I liked but thankfully the organisers are a bit more prepared.  In the media guide, a map of the course is accompanied by example images and plan maps of the corners, obstacles and jumps that they believe make the best image.  This means that the hardest part is finding some random dirt track up a mountain side with a name like “Crossways” or “Sweet Lamb”.  It goes without saying that satnav is of no use really so I was hugely grateful to be following Alastair who had covered the Wales rally last year.

Having been warned by Getty sports photographer (and confirmed petrol-head) Clive Rose how fast Sebastien Loeb would be, it didn’t take long to see that he wasn’t kidding.  Unlike other sports that build up to the main attraction, rally sees the #1 ranking driver take to the course first.  In some ways, this is great as you get the best drivers through quickly but for a total eejit like me, it just means that I have nothing to practise on.  It goes without saying that on some of the stages that I covered, there weren’t THAT many frames to file.

As a prime example of the glamour involved in press photography, I thought I’d include a test shot from my remote camera set-up on the peak of the “Myherin” section of day two.  Never in my life have I worked in such truly miserable conditions.  It was so bad, the unhappiness passed through into insanity and mania with bursts of laughter and giggles as the torrential rain whipped across the moorland.  On arrival, the massive turbines of the wind farm dominated the horizon creating the perfect setting for a nice feature shot.  Ma Nature clearly hates photographers though and as the roar of Loeb’s car first came into earshot, the fog fell and covered all but one.  With gusts tugging the protective bags from my lenses and triggers, it made for a truly dismal location.

It’s about now that I should probably try to sum up my experiences with Pocket Wizards.  Not being a regular sports photographer, I have little reason to play with them so on deciding to use them over the weekend, I faced a steep learning curve.  After making the beginner’s error of leaving the flash on TTL rather than manual, I was then deep into the world of completely illogical firing.

As top MTB photographer James Porteous explained to me, “if you ever open one up, you’ll discover that the case just contains magic and confusion”.  A perfect description as they would both decide to work for no reason and vice versa with absolutely no changes being made.  Utter utter confusion.  Bring on the Pocket Wizard Nikon-compatible TTL system as these rather battered Multimax units are just prime shoddiness.

The following day was spent at the “Fourways Crychan” and “Halfway” sections of the course and proved to be a marathon of hiking and endurance.  With the media car park 2km from the first jump and the second point of interest being around 4km away, the addition of a 400mm f2.8 lens plus full kit and laptop including three camera bodies, remotes and clamps was a nightmare.  Within five minutes of leaving the car, the decision to wear thermals and loads of layers proved to be a bit of an error, resulting in the drenched feelings of yesterday being replicated but inside my clothes this time.

With full accreditation bibs and passes, photographers are allowed access to any stage of the route and, aside from being told not to sit in the middle of the road, are left to their own devices.  While common sense initially tells you to steer well clear, it doesn’t take long before everyone is edging closer to the roadside and balancing remote cameras and flashguns on hay bales within inches of the track.  It’s only when you watch in-car footage of what the drivers get to see that you realise how insanely close to complete wipe-out these vehicles are.

Halfway through my second day, I didn’t feel that I was really getting anything of much use (or interest) so suggested to Alastair that we headed into one of the wooded sections of the course.  After yet more cross-country hiking, I settled on a corner of the track that would see the drivers power-slide round, allowing me to play around with the temperamental pocket wizards once again.  An early test shot resulted in a perfectly exposed frame being taken, followed immediately by a BBC sound effect album-style splintering sound as the branch that I’d clamped the flash and trigger to gave way and the toys fell 30 feet into a muddy ditch.  Incredibly, the triggers didn’t see this as a perfect opportunity to fail and continued to work for me.  As ever, first through was Sebastien Loeb and, with my timing unpractised, I missed the point of firing that I’d been after but got a happy accident in this unusual lighting pattern.

A few cars in and I really started to play around with what I could get.  As you may have already decided, I was straying somewhat from the brief of “rally photographer” but I guess that what comes of experimentation!

On the last day, we headed to Margam Park and, like all of the other stages, covered the leaders of the race before heading out to the finish line in Cardiff centre for the cup presentation.  With a large amount of amateur teams taking part, it really is only the top ten that are likely to be in contention so, aside from missing some unplanned aerobatics, it makes sense to get them shots in the bag and head on to the next location every time.

The Wales rally proved to be quite an odd experience in that not only was it a new discipline to get my head around but also, the winner of the whole championship had been decided weeks before and right from day one, there had been little doubt that Loeb would take the Welsh rally title too.  When the time came for the cup presentation, it was a decidedly muted affair with no real sense of excitement or celebration.  As the main cup had already been presented to him weeks before, it was a bit of a damp squib.  Added to this, it’s so weird to cover an event that gets so little press coverage in the UK.  Thankfully, I can see my play reports so get to see that the images are being used across Europe but here in the UK, it’s as if it didn’t happen.

In conclusion, I actually enjoyed covering the rally.  Yes, I know that goes against my usual anti-sport feelings but a combination of a new field of photography to get to grips with and having such an open physical area to find angles and ideas really does make for a creatively challenging and fun experience.  If I’d been writing this blog while sheltering behind a turbine, it may not have been quite the same answer.

So the miles rack up and the EUROs plod on. After last night’s frantic battle to see who could be less inspiring to shoot between France and Romania in Zurich, I’m making my way back down to Lugano to shoot fans watching tonight’s match at an outdoor arena. As the thunder clouds rumble outside my hotel room, I’m not overly confident.

Anyhow, following Mute’s comment on another post that the was interested in the “behind-the-scenes” side of the job, I thought I’d share how the system works when shooting sport for an international agency. The reason I stress the “international agency” part is not a lame attempt at bigging my job up but more to show the difference in speed that is necessary when thinking for a global market. As someone once told me, the deadline for print is always minutes away SOMEWHERE in the world so it’s always worth getting your shots out fast..

Having previously only shot football in the UK where it’s just a case of wandering up a few hours early and shooting the match, the organisation involved in international championships such as these are a totally different thing.

Firstly, the whole area around the stadium is closed to traffic hours before the match begins so pre-allocated parking/transport passes are issued and you’re generally expected to report to the venue around 4 hours before the match starts. On arrival, I have to wear one of the branded bibs and my personal pitch pass that displays my allocated position. In regular matches, it’s just a case of arriving early and putting a monopod down to mark your spot but here, my seat will be waiting for me along with a power socket and a LAN cable.

First job is to shoot the fans and any interesting aspect to the event that makes it different. New venue? Unexpected team playing? Die-hard fans in full team colours? This should be considered from the moment you get near the stadium so I always make sure I have a camera ready to shoot any fans on interest who are loitering with intent to support on the streets outside.

When it comes to editing, captioning and sending the pictures, this is where the main difference appears; instead of performing the tricky skill of balancing a 400mm lens on a monopod, a 200mm around my neck and a computer on my lap as I frantically choose, crop, edit, caption and send the images back to the picture desk, I now have to shoot small bursts of maybe 2 minutes of action, scroll the images on the back of the camera, lock two or three that I like and delete ALL the rest. Then the card is slotted into my reader where the images are automatically ripped, identified and sent straight to Paris where someone else will choose, edit, caption and release the images that they want. Yikes. This goes against everything that the vast majority of people reading this will know or be used to (including me) The feeling of having to decide there and then what pictures work from a 2″ screen before sending the images off into the ether, hoping that someone a few hundred miles away has “seen” the same thing in the image that you have is a hard one to get used to.

The other new development for me is using remote cameras behind the goal. Anyone who watches football may have seen all the cameras on the floor behind the net but not realised that they are triggered by either a foot switch that you fire whenever you think there may be a goal or a transmitter from another camera that simultaneously fires the goal camera whenever you take a picture. This results in some unique style of tap-dancing whenever there’s any action near your goal as you quickly change from your long lens camera to your shorter range, swing the long lens to your side so you aren’t blocking other photographers and watch for the chance to press your foot switch. Craziness. Thankfully, here at EURO2008, all of the images from the camera behind the net are also transmitted directly to Paris without having to take the card out so someone else has to wade through a card full of shots of sky with no action to find one worthwhile..

After the match, there’s a quick scan of the terraces near you for celebrating/sobbing fan reaction pictures then pack it all up and begin the long walk back to the car..

Couldn’t have put it better myself..