FlashWave-III Wireless Radio Slave Receiver (Receiver for Remote Wireless Flash Trigger System) - Receiver Unit

I've had several poverty-wizards before I switched up to this unit. These units are somewhere between PocketWizards and the numerous ebay and amazon knock offs that sell for $15 to $35 a piece.In terms off distance, these units rock. If you're dealing with line-of-sight then distance probably won't be a practical concern. But, that extra power also helps you go through walls. If you do things like place a flash around the corner or behind a counter to be tucked out of the way, the extra power works well. Again, that's compared to cheapo units.Also, I've noticed that the cheap units aren't always reliable in terms of achieving a 1/250th synch speed. These units seem to hit that speed quite reliably. In the few tests I've had, I've not noticed any misfires of these FlashWave 3's.The units come nicely packed with a set of cables and options. When used with a hotshoe flash, the unit can be screwed into a lightstand or tripod for support, or (because of it's long design) can be used as a stand for a hotshoe flash. The included lanyard and stick-on plastic bit means its convenient to use with monolight strobes as well. The cables to trigger the camera itself aren't included, but I've got seperate units to accomplish that if needed.In terms of durability, the units have a nice solid feel to them. My son knocked a unit off my desk that was still connected to a hot shoe flash. It had cracked the unit open, almost in half. I simply pressed the two pieces together and it snapped into place as good as new.Somethings that would have gotten it to 5 stars:Cheaper priceIf the transmitter allowed mounting a flash as well, with TTLIf the transmitter used a normal batter, like AA or AAA.

The flashwave lll wireless radio slave is a very good product. It is well built and very easy to use. Ive purchased (2) of them over the past (6) months along with a transmitter and ive had no issues what so ever. There were a few times when the flash did not go off but it was very few and far between and usually happened when I was more than (100) feet away. Between (100) and (150) feet it fired (7) out of (10) times.Once on a windy day I had my 580EX ll and the flashwave lll receiver on a Paul Buff light stand. I didnt have the coupling tight and the wind blew them off the stand. Upon hitting the ground the flashwave connection for the 580 became dislodged. I simply took the flashwave apart and screwed the connection back on from the inside then put it back together, it was a simple process and it now works perfectly. There are cheaper products out there which dont perform half as well and more expensive ones that are similar in performance. For most photographers this is more than enough and would recommend to all semi pro Photographers who want a great product for a decent price.

These work quite well in the few weeks I have had them and have an impressive range, and seem solidly built. However I have found that they will not trigger certain of my strobes. I have several Vivitar 283 strobes, and it will fire some but not others. I knew these strobes and their hotshoe contacts were fine, because they cave be triggered by my optical slaves. Knowing that 283s vary quite a bit in trigger voltages, I discovered that those which would NOT fire had trigger voltages of 110 V whereas the models that fired fine had low voltages of around 8 V (you simply measure across the hotshoe contacts with a voltmeter while the flash is charged up).Since this is a very popular flash, I figured it was worth noting this. The company's specs listed here claim it can handle voltages of 300 V but this is clearly not the case.Fortunately it seems to handle all sorts of other flashes well, including those with TTL pins which some of my Wein optical slaves are fussy about.If not for this flaw I would rate the units five stars.

I've had these flash triggers for about six months now, and the times I have used them they have worked as described. I have found that the metal layer on the top continues to fall off, despite residing nearly all of the time in my bag. I would have preferred to feel as though these were superbly built for costing the amount that they do (despite being a non-pocket-wizard). However, they have yet to fail on me, and I will continue to use them as my off-camera light triggers, as I have a hard time justifying the cost of the Pocket Wizards when other triggers on the market have nearly the same reliability.

This thing is cheap crap that really doesn’t qualify as Dollar Store Quality. My old Wein “Peanut Slaves” with old Vivitar 283’s & 285’s work far better! Save your money and buy quality. I couldn’t give this crap away!

I now have 3 of the receivers and two transmitters. They work fine if you don't need TTL flash. The remote control function is a great bonus; I have cords for both my Nikon D70 and D300/D1xYou should know that B&H sell these under the Impact brand name but 1) they are typically $10-20 more expensive per unit and 2) B&H seem to strip the accessories and sell them separately. The Flashwaves branded units come with tripod bush-accessory shoe adapters, headphone jack adapter (for mains studio flash), self-adhesive accessory shoe mounts, etc etc. The Tx unit comes with battery ready installed, and a sync cable that handily fits my Metz 40 MZ units.The only way they could be improved is by having the sync terminal threaded, to prevent sync cords from falling out. I am not sure why the shoe on the receiver appears to have multiple connections - these units currently don't support TTL. Perhaps just the way that SMDV are sourcing the parts.Although the instructions state max sync at 1/200th, I can happily confirm that I get sync at 1/320 (with a little blackout at the top edge of the frame) on the D300. D70 and D1x both sync all the way up to their max speeds (1/16000th on the D1x).