Yongnuo RF-603C / N (Nikon) Remote Flash Trigger Hey there ladies and gentlemen. I thought I would talk this evening about radio triggers, why you absolutely positively need one if you’re using a flash, and why Radio triggers are different (and better) than IR (infra-red) triggers. First, let’s start with WHY you need a remote trigger at all. Put simply, the remote trigger allows you to take your flash off of your camera and place it somewhere else. The remote trigger passes the signal from your camera to your flash through the air so that when you depress the shutter release, your flash will ...... FLASH lol. Because as you continue to grow as a photographer, the need to get your flash off your camera becomes more and more necessary, then a remote trigger will become more and more necessary. Remote triggers come in a variety of types, and price ranges. They generally start at about $35.00 per pair (Yongnuo), and go up to about $300.00 each (Pocket Wizard). The primary difference between flash triggers is whether or not they use Infra-Red (light) signals or Radio signals, and whether they will pass along the ETTL signal to your flash or not. Let start with Infra-Red (IR) triggers. IR triggers use a beam of light to communicate from the camera to the flash. These kinds of triggers are generally less expensive than radio triggers, but have some very serious drawbacks in practical use. Because IR transmitters and receivers use a beam of light to communicate with one another, it’s very easy to block the light beam from getting from the camera to the flash. So, for instance, they don’t work well in brightly lit conditions like outside on a sunny day. They also don’t work well if the flash is inside of a soft-box. In addition, if you’ve got any sort of light modifier such as a gobo, or flag, or anything else obstructing the “view” of the IR transmitter and IR receiver, you’re going to have a problem. In addition, they usually have a very limited range of less than 20 feet, and that’s if you’re in a dimly lit room with absolutely nothing obstructing the view of the camera to the flash. Meaning, if you’re using the flash in an umbrella…. The IR flash triggers probably aren’t going to work very well. I know from experience how exacerbating this problem can be, so I will go ahead and say for the record. In my early days, I thought I would save myself a few dollars, and go with IR transmitters. I regretted it from the moment I started using them until I finally just put them back into their box, never to return to my bag. Now that we’ve established that IR triggers aren’t the way to go…. Let’s talk about RADIO triggers. Radio triggers use radio waves similar to the same radio waves that your cell phone uses. As you know, cell phone signals penetrate walls, purses, structures, and all variety of things. This is because radio waves can pass through all of these objects. What this translates to, is that you can use radio triggers for your flash trigger, and you’re much less likely to have a failure, or flash problem. With radio triggers, you can go ahead and put your flash inside of a softbox, or your camera behind a small wall of light flags, and you’re not going to have a problem triggering your flash. Until recently, the prices between IR triggers, and RADIO triggers was about two to three times the cost. Radio triggers were about three times more expensive than IR triggers of equivalent functionality (ETTL / NON-ETTL). Today, that’s not the case. Radio triggers have come way down in price, and quite frankly, less expensive in some cases than IR triggers! Enter the Yongnuo RF-603C radio flash trigger! Now, let’s talk about the Yongnuo radio trigger specifically. I have personally been using these radio triggers for over two years now, and I absolutely, positively LOVE them! They have been a staple of my photography, and will continue to be for a very long time. One of the things that I absolutely LOVE about theses radio triggers is that each trigger is actually a TRANCEIVER. What this means is that each unit can act as either a TRANsmitter or a reCEIVER (TRANCEIVER). In terms of what this means in practical usage is that if one of your units goes down, either the “transmitter” attached to your camera, or the “receiver” attached to your flash, you can just swap it out with another unit and you’re off and running! A short story…… I had a set of radio triggers that I purchased from the camera store that were far above and away MUCH more expensive than the Yongnuo transmitters. In this set of triggers, there was a dedicated transmitter, and dedicated receivers. They were NOT TRANSCEIVERS! They were dedicated to their function. So, because I only had one camera, and about 5 flashes… I purchased… You guessed it. One transmitter, and five receivers. Then, I figured.. since I was much more likely to have a receiver get busted (flash stand gets knocked over….), I purchased one extra receiver. Wedding day! So, I’m shooting a wedding, I’ve got all five flashes going, and….. everything stops working. I check my transmitter on top of my camera, and it says that it’s working… but…. It wasn’t. I had the ONE transmitter fail on me, and stopped me from using ALL of my flashes. I could have made do with just four flashes, but since the transmitter had gone down, I had no option. I only had ONE transmitter…… and it was dead. All my flashes were down, and no way to get them back. Back to the Yongnuo’s. If the same scenario had played out and I had been using the Yongnuo triggers, I could have simply taken down one of my flash units.. popped the trigger off of the flash, put it on top of my camera, and been right back in business, because….. Yongnuo triggers are TRANSCEIVERS! So.. this is feature numero-uno that I love about these little Yongnuo’s, but wait….. There’s more! Hand-Held Flash Trigger You know how when you were a kid… and taking a photograph, the photographer had this little thing in his hand that looked like one of those nurse caller buttons in the hospital? Well, that is a hand-held flash trigger. Of course, those back then had cords, but these little Yongnuo’s can be used as WIRELESS hand-held flash triggers!! I get super-excited about this feature because it has SO many really great uses! Let’s say that you’re taking photographs of a small child. You set your camera on a tripod, and focus in on the child. With the Yongnuo trigger, you can now walk away from the camera, and trigger it using your Yongnuo! Just press the button on the trigger ½ way down, and the camera will focus. Press it all the way down, and BAM! Camera will release the shutter taking a photograph! This is invaluable for getting shots where you need to be away from the camera. it’s also REALLY great for getting jitter-free photographs for long-exposures. One of the issues with taking long-exposure photographs is that when you touch the camera to press the shutter release button, it causes a tiny bit of camera shake. This tiny amount of camera shake can be enough to cause a serious problem with the photograph. With the Yongnuo triggers, you never actually have to touch the camera. Just get everything set up…. Take your hands off of the camera, and use your radio trigger to release the shutter. Viola! No camera shake. Here’s the best part! You ready?! These little guys are only $35.00 a pair!! Yep, you read that right! Just $35 bucks a PAIR! I get a little excited because they are just so dang cheap, you can’t afford NOT to have a couple pair. One suggestion though… Even if you have just one flash, you’ll want to get TWO Pair (total of 4). Why? Well, you’ll need one on top of your camera. One on the flash, One to hold in your hand, and a spare. That makes four. So, what about the other brands? PocketWizard, and some of the others out there? While it’s undeniable that the PocketWizard is the industry standard for radio transmitters, they also carry a VERY hefty price tag. I’m not an expert on PW pricing, but every time I’ve gone into the camera store, or looked at them online, the basic transmitter is about $300 bucks, and the basic receiver is about $150 bucks. For the average person / entry-level photographer, that’s just far too expensive. Don’t get me wrong…. If I was going to blow a wad of money, I would definitely consider the PW’s. They are bullet proof (figuratively speaking of course), and work with nearly every piece of equipment out there. Most flash meters have PW interfaces built into them so that they can trigger the flashes for readings, and a myriad of other products that intermix with the PW. But for my tastes.. the YN product works fantastically, and I haven’t been swayed yet. ETTL So…. If you’ve already got a flash, and it’s of a more expensive variety, it’s probably got ETTL built in. While ETTL is great and all (for some), personally I VERY RARELY use it. 95% of the time, my flashes are manually set, and ETTL never comes into the picture (pun intended lol). However, if you decide that you just HAVE to have ETTL transmitters / receivers, then Yongnuo has a product for you, but beware. They are MUCH more expensive ($70 each) than these little guys, and they are dedicated transmitter / receiver. This means that you will not have the ability to swap out with just any other unit. So, even just to get started with transmitters/receivers for just one flash unit, you’ll have to spend a much greater amount of money because you’ll need a backup for the transmitter, AND a backup for the receiver, so you’ve got to have four units, and yet you could only run two flashes. With the Yongnuo and the same number of units, you could run three flashes and one unit on top of the camera as the transmitter. If the transmitter goes down.. pop one off one of the other flashes, stick it onto your camera, and you’re back in business! All in all, I really love the Yongnuo triggers, and feel that they are a huge asset in my bag. I never leave home without them, and they have never failed me yet. I hope you found this review to be helpful, and if you have any questions whatsoever about this subject, please feel free to post any questions right here, and I will get back to you as soon as I can, or one of our other members will be glad to help you too! Sincerely, Kai Shutter101
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 04:57:45 +0000
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