I've been using these to fire off-camera flashes for general photography, not cave photography.

They're radio triggers, not IR so you shouldn't have the same line of sight issues that you can get with IR.

Just a heads up really as they are cheap and pretty well built.

I'm not sure how well they would work in caves but at the price it might be attractive to some of you.

You can get them from HK based ebay sellers (took about 2 weeks to arrive) and Amazon are selling them too.

I have a set and they are ok so far.
Not to good in bulb mode when controlling the camera (can be used either for flash or for camera) but pretty good for controlling the flash.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mountainpenguin/4464465362/#in/set-72157623706100218/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mountainpenguin/4463689699/#in/set-72157623706100218/
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mountainpenguin/4464465082/#in/set-72157623706100218/
were taken using them

I've not tried them to control bulb mode - I got another cheap radio remote from HK for that - ?12 and works well.

Nice pics 

me and a friend use them alot to fire off camera flashes and they work really well.  when i get a chance todo some caving photography/get around to buying a new peli case i will be trying them underground but i don't expect them to have a problem.

alastair

I have been using the Cactus v4 wireless flash trigger successfully underground. You can buy them directly from here:
http://www.gadgetinfinity.com/product.php?productid=17204&cat=274&page=1

I heard about then on the US caving forum and thought I would give it a go. Works out around ?30 for a set, and you can buy additional receivers. I still use firefly slaves on most of my flashes, but trigger one or two flashes close to the camera using the radio trigger. Saves carrying an extra masked off flash to trigger the firefly slaves.

I've not tested the range of these, but you will not get anything like the range of a firefly with these. The radio waves just don't go far enough. Fireflies do not require line of sight as they are sensitive to trigger from reflections over considerable distances. But the radio trigger gives a light weight compact way to trigger the flashes from the camera.

from my experience the rf-602's have alot more range than the catus v2's and i assume the v2's and v4's are pretty similar range wise

bubba said:

Anyone tried RF-602 radio triggers?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the shout. You're post got me round to finally getting a set of radio firers. I've been researching them for a while. Most people seem to agree with Alistar above, that the RF-602 are the best, so i forked out my ?35 on eBay for a transmitter and two receivers (e.g http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RF-602-RF602-for-Canon-5DII-50D-40D-30D-5D-w-2-Receiver_W0QQitemZ280421648068).

Arrived in a week, quick run down the road photographing myself as i go. WOW! Easily 80m away and still firing the camera every time!!! That'll do...

As like Bubba, i also got a crappy ?14 one off eBay (range more like 15m on fullest batteries). Now with the two systems I've got lots of options when i've got no friends.
Interestingly a few days later I needed a shot of someone abseiling but had no friends about (probably all doing what i should have been; recovering from the Eldon stomp) so I bombed down Bagshaw with my new radio-based friends.

Crappy radio to open the camera set to 4sec exposure, homemade torch lighting foreground, RF-602 rig then to fire flashgun below within 4 seconds [both radio triggers in my left hand] :


Relatively boring shot photographically, but i reckon it's pretty good considering i was on my own.

probably all doing what i should have been; recovering from the Eldon stomp

Click to expand...

Me and Sally were round and about and would have posed!! 
The Bagshawe digging team were wondering what you were doing down Bagshawe on your own!!

I have some of the RF-602 and I use it with a nikon d200 camera and SB-28 flash units. It works very well. Also in big rooms the slave units fire sure.

www.michaelschopper.com

Regards Michael

These things look cool.  The only problem is that my Metz flashguns don't have standard PC cord sockets (for Fireflies I use male Metz -> male PC leads).  Do these receivers have female PC sockets on them or any kind of standard socket?  It looks from descriptions I've read as if they don't...

...be careful the RF602 is only working with newer flash modells, which has a very low trigger voltage. For example the good old Metz BCT34 (which I had long time in use) has about 200V trigger voltage at the hotshoe. I have damage a RF602 receiver with that.

Regards
Michael

All sounds very good.....

However, they do drain the batteries extremely fast. 

When wired up to my large and medium sized flashbulb firers the distances they operated successfully in reduced way too fast for my liking.
To begin with, at 165m away they worked well with the model's back to the camera ...but it wasn't long (6 bulbs) before the model was forced to stand 40m away with the receiver in a direct line to the camera/transmitter for them to continue working.

So I have invested in these babies http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/item/703-195A/ 
With a range of 1600ft they work just fine. 
Totally recommend them!

So, there are a few RF-602 transmitters/receivers going cheap.
Great for macro stuff but useless in serious caves!


Robbie Shone

Those Pocket Wizard units look nice, but if I understand it right, you need at least two of them (one for the camera and one for the flash) at ?179 each! 

I've played a bit more with my Cactus IV radio slaves (?30 for a transmitter and receiver pair) and they have worked great so far. I've not really tested the range yet, so I can't be certain they will not suffer the problems Robbie reported. But they are rated for up to 300V contact trigger voltage for the flash guns,  so that is not a problem. Their quoted range is 30 metres.

Here is a 360 panoramic photo taken in Godstone mine where we used these Cactus slaves for a couple of hours without any issues. The radio slaves were not actually used for the panorama (which was lit using my home made LED lights) but you get an idea of the scale of the place. You'll have to find the entrance first though! (Hint: It is somewhere under your feet.) Use your mouse wheel to zoom in or out. http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/footleg/panotours/index.html

littletitan said:

So, there are a few RF-602 transmitters/receivers going cheap.
Great for macro stuff but useless in serious caves!

Click to expand...

Well the RF-602s aren't known as "poverty wizards" for nothing

Of course they won't match the pocket wizards, but at the price they are pretty good.

And I suspect your definition of "macro" is a little biased by shooting very large caves

I have recently acquired some RF-602 radio triggers and i am  trying to work out a way to fire a bulb flash from these with no success.

Has anyone any advice on how to do this or is this not possible ?

No idea Tim, as far as I know they're only for Canon/Nikon style strobes.

This post: Review of Dot Line Radio Slave ([url=http://www.forums.caves.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10638]http://www.forums.caves.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10638)[/url] on the American NSS caving forum might be of interest as well.

footleg said:

I have been using the Cactus v4 wireless flash trigger successfully underground. You can buy them directly from here:
http://www.gadgetinfinity.com/product.php?productid=17204&cat=274&page=1

Click to expand...

An important update after a full day trip in Matienzo this Summer photographing with my Cactus v4 on my Canon EOS 5D. Reviewing the photos after the trip I realised I had a band of noise down the long edge of every picture, covering about 1/6 of the frame. I thought at first that my camera sensor had developed a fault, but taking a picture after the trip there was no problem. The noise was only apparent on the preview screen when zoomed all the way in, so difficult to spot in the cave at the time I was taking the pictures. It occurred to me that the only factor that was different on this trip to all my others was that I was using the Cactus v4 on the camera hotshoe. I do not know if this effect is specific to my one transmitter, or a general issue with these transmitters and the Canon 5D. We realised that all the other trips where we had used this radio slave were with different cameras, and I am not aware of the problem having been spotted by the photographers I lent the slave to on those trips. But coincidence I have been playing with SIT techniques using my LED filming lights on the trips in question, so had not used the trigger myself on my own camera before this recent trip.

I've not tried the Cactus transmitter on the camera PC socket yet (which might avoid the problem), or tried another Cactus transmitter to see if this issue is peculiar to the one unit I have. But I thought it worth bringing to people's attention as it rather spoiled a number of photos on my trip. Thankfully I can crop some and the noise is less evident on some frames than others as it gets hidden is brighter exposures by the image detail.

I'll be trying my cheap Hong Kong (via ebay) radio slave again this weekend. Previously it has always worked flawlessly around the house, but failed to work underground on the 2 trips I have tried it on before. The Cactus v4 system by contrast worked perfectly in all respects apart from introducing this band of noise on all the images I took with it. So on other cameras it could still be recommended. But try it on your camera before taking it underground and examine the pictures carefully (take some with the lens cap on in manual mode and check them on a computer for noise patterns with and without the radio transmitter on the camera).

Just tested the link in my last message and see that they are aware of the issue and have resolved it. So units shipped recently should work fine with the Canon 5D.

Just to update on my camera interference issue with the Cactus v4 radio trigger and the EOS 5D model of camera. I contacted Gadget Infinity about this, and they immediately offered to replace my trigger unit with the new revision they have produced which addresses the problem. I had purchased my original within the last 12 months, which possibly helped. Anyway, for the cost of posting the old trigger back to them in Hong Kong, and a wait of a few weeks for the postal system in both directions, I now have the replacement and can confirm that it works fine on my camera. So I am back on course to take future photos with the Cactus v4 system which performed so reliably underground (compared to my multiple Firefly 2 slaves on various hammerhead flash guns). I was impressed with the customer service of Gadget Infinity and will probably buy some more receivers for additional flashes in the future.