Cactus V2s Wireless Triggers
A few weeks ago I discovered an amazing blog called “Strobist“. The aim of the blog is to teach you how to light your photographs using a portable off camera flash unit (As opposed to a studio flash). The philosophy is that your on camera look-ma-everythings-glowing flash is awful, but if we take it off camera and diffuse it, snoot it, bounce it and myriad of other things, we can get some truly great light for our photos. On top of that, it’s small and runs off batteries so we can easily take it out with us.
I read through their tutorials and found myself getting more and more excited at what a simple, one flash, portable system could achieve and I wanted to try out the techniques on the site. Of course before I could do that I actually needed to have a flash and once I had that I had to have something to trigger it. The first step was a visit to Auckland Camera Centre to get the flash. Thankfully I pretty much knew what I want because the service was awful and I will likely never return, but I forked out my $500, grabbed my flash and left.
Now I had a nice flash but the only way to use it was to sit it in my camera hotshoe. While this flash is much better than the built in one on my Canon 300d, it was still facing straight ahead and could burn retinas in an instant while simultaneously lighting everyone in the room in that bright, flat light that most people’s grandmas are bathed in at family gatherings. So I needed to get it off my camera which meant I needed something to trigger it. One option is to use a PC cord which joins the camera to the flash but I was more interested in a wireless solution for ease of use and flexibility, not to mention avoidance of tripping over it and destroying my gear and my body in one foul swoop.
One option was to go with a defacto set of PocketWizards but those things are EXPENSIVE (US$3-400 for a set) and just not something my bank balance could handle. So again Strobist came to the rescue when I started spotting people talking about these Cactus V2 systems from a Hong Kong supplier called GadgetInfinity. They didn’t seem as reliable in their firing, and their operation distances were small but they were cheap. At US$32.95 + US$5 shipping for the V2s (The one that works with the 430EX II) they were about as good as I was going to be able to afford.
So I placed my order and within about a week they turned up.
Cactus V2s Box
I was pleasantly surprised to find the box was reasonably well made and it was packed well in a padded bag. On opening I found all the pieces where they should be with the flash stand underneath the plastic tray that held all the main pieces.
Inside the Cactus V2s box
The system itself is plastic and reasonably well made. Not anywhere near the level of pro gear, but it’s also pretty solid for the most part with the one concern being the metal hotshoe bracket on the bottom of the receiver. It looks a little flimsy and I can imagine that a knock of the flash while on this receiver might pull the metal bracket away from the plastic body. I will allay this fear at a later date when I start getting into modding the unit as many others have done to increase the range and reliability of the system.
Pulling out the pieces I put in the battery, set it all up, and fired a test shot by pressing the ‘test’ button on top of the transmitter (That’s the piece on the right in the photo above). Nothing happened. I checked the channels were matched between receiver and transmittter, as the system can be set to 1 of 4 possible channels, but still no go. So I grabbed the small manual, flicked to the Troubleshooting section and looked at the “Flash does not fire” section. The first solution in that section simultaneously made me happy and embarrassed. It read: “Ensure the plastic covering on the battery is removed”.
With that out of the way, I tried again and the test firing worked – excellent! Unfortunately I had to leave everything there so I have yet to have a good session with the unit and my newly purchased diffusion umbrella, so for now I’ll leave you with a picture of the stand and setup and return later with some actual photos and experiences with the unit.
Cactus V2s Setup
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