Radio Poppers Rock!

While attending ImagingUSA 2009 in Phoenix, I learned about a nifty new product called Radio Poppers!   This clever little gadget connects to your Canon or Nikon flashes and converts their infrared light communications to radio wireless.  This can offer a tremendous advantage!

Current Canon and Nikon flashes communicate wirelessly using very rapid pulses of light to convey exposure information.   This method of communication has its drawbacks… mainly the fact that the communications only works if the slave flash(es) are within line-of-sight of the master.    Plus triggering distances are limited to 10 or 20 feet or so.   With Radio Poppers, they basically intercept these light interactions between the flashes and convert them over to radio communications.  That means no more line-of-sight requirements, and distances can be extended to 100-1700 feet!

I would love to see Canon and Nikon switch over to an internal radio wireless approach, but that’s not likely to happen.  So this is your BEST option I’ve seen for radio wireless triggering of slave flashes for the Canon Speedlites and Nikon Speedlights.

What about Pocket Wizards?
Pocket Wizards are great little radio triggering products, used by many pro photographers but they only serve to trigger a flash to fire.  They do not transmit all of these added communications that are necessary for Canon or Nikon flashes to transmit the additional exposure information.   Thus Pocket Wizards introduce extreme limitations, while Radio Poppers add all of the benefits of radio wireless communication without any limitations.  Also, I’ve often wondered why Pocket Wizards are the size of small walkie-talkies of the 1980’s!

Radio Popper Does It All!
They are simply amazing!  They support E-TTL, I-TTL, groups,  ratios, and high speed synch up to 1/8000th of a second (all things Pocket Wizards can’t do).   And their latest PX products allow you to fully integrate with manual lights combined with E-TTL lights seamlessly!  Plus they can optionally be configured to adjust the levels of Alien Bees and White Lightning equipment!  Impressive!

I haven’t actually tried the Radio Poppers yet, but I could easily imagine having some in my camera bag sometime soon!

For more information about Radio Poppers, check out http://www.RadioPopper.com 

Also, check out their video below by Radio Poppers founder Kevin King.  Prepare to be impressed…

Images are Copyright (c) Radio Poppers.