Going the distance...

So, I have really been getting into the Strobist movement / style lately. One of the most expensive things about shooting this way (off camera flash) is triggering your flashes remotely. The industry standard is a radio device called a Pocket Wizard. A set of Pocket Wizards will set you back to the tune of about $600 bucks! That's just the kind of scratch I don't have in liquid form right now, so what to do? Fortunately, my Nikon camera is able to trigger off camera flashes with something Nikon calls CLS (Creative Lighting System). CLS works pretty well indoors, but should be called CDS (Can't Do Shit) when you are key shifting in daylight. Well, realizing that I had to do something, I quickly went to paradise to see what I could find. I found a set of "Studio Radio Triggers" at a company that I am pretty used to dealing with, called Alzo Digital. At less than $40 for a transmitter and receiver, how could I go wrong? I ordered one transmitter, and two receivers.

When they came in, Korey said they looked very much like Cactus V2s, or the Gadget Infinity triggers, AKA "Poverty Wizards." I really hadn't heard much good about them, but hell... it's $40 bucks. Since then, I have really put them through the paces. Each time they work in about the 80% range... not bad... not really good though either. Fast forward to yesterday.

I was looking for something on the Internet, and stumbled on a large number of DIY hacks to add an antenna to the transmitter of my triggers. Hmm. I read numerous ways of doing it, and most yielded really great improvements with the range of the Poverty Wizard, or E-bay trigger. Common sense would tell you that if you increase range, you will increase reliability along with it. I decided to do the modification... did I mention that they were only $40?

First thing was to get a baseline measurement of distance before making the mod. I placed the flash on a chair on my porch and started walking away, popping the flash with the transmitter which I held in my hand. I made it about a house and a half away. I know, my Mr. Wizard, scientific approach to measurement is hard to understand! I figure each of my neighbor's yards are about 70 feet wide (yes, we live in zero-lots). Calculate that, to equal about 105 feet. I was sort of surprised with the results to begin with. I guess this was a good night.

Now it's time to do the mod. I used:

• Cordless Drill


• Drill Bit (just about the same size as a pen cap)


• Pen Cap


• Approx 5.78" of copper wire


• Soldering Iron


• Solder

First, I disassembled the transmitter. You should know how to do this or you are screwed when you need to change the batteries. Next, I drilled a hole in the top cover of the transmitter so I could push the pen cap through snugly. Then, I cut the pen cap so that it would clear the innards of the transmitter, and look halfway decent.

NOTE: The pen cap is strictly for appearance. I got the idea from another person's blog. Google "GI antenna mod" and you will find all of the same information I did.

I pushed the pen cap in place and moved on to the actual working part of the mod. When you are looking at the PCB... oh crap! Quick! Take out the battery! Ok, as I was saying... while looking down at the PCB with the battery facing toward you, you will notice a hole in the top, left corner of the PCB which is empty. Solder your wire to that hole. If you are unable to solder, put the transmitter back together and find someone who can. After the wire is soldered, wrap it around a pencil, pen, or letter opener, like I did to give it a spiral shape. Feed the wire up into the pen cap as you reassemble the whole shebang, and put it all back together (one screw).

RESULTS: Remember the scant one and a half house distance I got before? I do too. I will soon, however forget it. First test, I got a reliable SIX HOUSES!!! After just about crapping my pants, and a quick call to brag to Korey, I put the transmitter on my camera (before I was testing by pushing the test button) and tried it again. This time SEVEN AND A HALF HOUSES!! This was amazing, because the triggers always seemed to work better when you pushed the test button, now it's reversed... the usable way!

Anywho... sorry for no pictures of the mod process, there are plenty of those on the web for you to enjoy.