All right, we're back from lunch with a little bit of food coma going on but that's right? We're going to power through this and by power through I mean, we do have like another thirteen something videos in this chapter so let's get started and this video we're going to cover quickly are three favorite pocket strobes now among this let's start with number one the faux takes metros this little guy is four hundred bucks now this is my favorite off camera flash and this is a full feature off camera flash including a built in radio system. So what are the pros about this guy? Will it cost four hundred bucks and for that price it's actually less expensive I think it's actually it's actually less expensive than the cannon equivalent which is the kanan six hundred ex artie and nikon doesn't even have an equivalent. So if you're shooting cannon or nikon this comes with both variants were hoping that they open up two additional brands in the future like, say sony and so forth so weakened by met...

ro's pluses for those now along with this you have full features, you have tl, you have rear curtain sink, you have high speed sync, you have all that functionality including built in radio system has grouping it has channels I think it has four different groups as channels has everything you possibly need and you have a couple different options you can actually control all the off camera flashes with another foe takes me, chose plus that's mounted to your camera. Or you can simply use the faux ticks. Oded this guy's, the odin transceiver and it can control all the groups if you don't want to have a flash on your camera now, this guy the benefit is he's a little bit less expensive than buying another meters plus two simply control. All the off camera units also find him a little bit easier to use as well. Okay, the on ly downside, really with the photo metro's plus that, I would say is worth mentioning is just that the overall menu system, the user interface could be a little bit better it's a little bit clunky, kind of moving around and kind of adjusting powers very quickly that for most of you, you won't really run into that difference or that kind of nuisance, I guess. But for some that chute like events like say for us, I'm constantly turning on and off different groups and making adjustments very quickly. The adjustments are fairly simple to make, but I wish there was a way in the interface that you could click. One button to get teo each different option and to make one button adjustments to turn on and off like you would say the grouping on apocalypse with a pocket wizard if we want a group turn on or off we just hit that button once and so it's very, very simple so I do hope that in the next iteration of this siri's you know there's going to be more versions and hopefully they kind of address that little bit of a jewish issue but still is by far my favorite flash overall and it comes with all the other standards like has you know obviously has a good recycled time. The good wireless range has external power input has three point five millimeters sink port in case you need that on but also has a metal hashi so there's a kind of standards that we kind of you know just assume that these flashes should have my number two this guy's my number two so this is the full feature guy which is three hundred nine bucks which puts its total cost per off camera flash at four hundred dollars this is the lower pro lp one eighty it comes at two hundred dollars but the only thing is you need either the pocket wizard plus three or some other radio trigger to fire this now a pock wizard x is a hundred bucks plus three is one hundred forty nine bucks and that brings the total cost per off camera flash to roughly around three hundred to three hundred fifty dollars. Granted, there are less expensive radio triggers out there, but I don't know if I like using them professionally because they do have consistency issues in firing and triggering and so forth. But the pock wizard siri's works fantastically well with the limit pro. What are some of the pros of this? Well, number one for a manual flash is built extremely well. It has a very, very solid build quality to it. Number two it's, a very simple interface on the back side and we have just basic options to go up or you know, right left we have we can put in a sleigh vote if you want to use infrared, we have a test button it's very, very simple. The user interface is just kind of like open up out of the box and just run with it. It's really easy to use. Also some cool things that we have on here is a quarter twenty port right here on the side so we can mount quarter twenty screws directly to this, which means that I could put this onto a light stand just like this if I didn't have a shoe or something else to kind of put onto it so it makes it very easy to mount and to do whatever you want uh to the side with that quarter twenty whole quarter twenty whole quarter twenty screw whole quarter twenty port what everyone call it I don't care has fantastic wireless range when you're using the park was with ease now we've done extensive pocket was their testing and on certain flash unit's you run into a wireless issues usually due to interference like save pocket wizard and cannon five eighty ex twos and for thirties they have a major issue with interference this guy's been tested and it works solidly it has great range, very consistent results and so forth we also have really good recycle times has external power input, so if he wanted teo power the device externally, we could do that or or basically get better recycled times with that we'll have a metal hot shoot. The on ly cons of this guy is that it is manual control on ly obviously so this is a manual flash meaning that we don't have tl details on a big deal we never used to feel any way, but we don't have rear curtain sink we don't have first currents sink options we don't have high speed sync all those additional features we do not have so you're going you're going to be adjusting your power settings directly from each off camera flash, which means that you know if you're using this in conjunction with a pocket wizard and you need to power this flash up or down then you need to either yourself or have a lighting assistant walk over to the flash, power up and down and change zoom settings manually on this guy versus with a kotex metros everything is controlled directly from your camera so you can control zoom and power settings directly from the odin or directly from your other metro's plus okay, so the other thing the other con to this is that it's, more expensive than other cheap flash is granted the build quality is better, so you're getting a value for that. But still a two hundred bucks is not a silly cheap, and also it requires third party radio systems, which puts its total o cf cost at three hundred three fifty, which means that you're getting close to the foreign dollar mark, which means if you're say, which means a ton basically is saying that if you're going to be buying three or four these, you'll save a few hundred dollars going this route, but you're gonna have a lot of convenience saved going this route, so I'll let you guys decide on which you prefer whether you go manual or full feature, but for myself, I prefer definitely going full feature number three my third favorite pocket flash or pocket strobe is the cannon six hundred e x artie granted, these used to be six hundred dollars there now five hundred dollars most likely due to the fact that the metro's plus came in at four hundred dollars so can and brought the price down a hundred bucks it has basically everything that you'd want inside of this flash okay, so they're basically identical but this flash the e x artie has two advantages over the metros plus and you have to decide whether those two advantages are worth one hundred bucks advantage number one is that since this is canon basically a cannon device on a cannon flash you are going to get better operative features like basically the autofocus assist in low light situations is better on the six hundred dx aarti than it is on the photo meters plus the meters plus still has the autofocus assist but it's a little bit more sluggish in comparison. So if you're shooting a lot of low light that may be worthwhile to you to at least have this on camera versus this guy on camera but you can still wire to ah thea let's say you can still actually wire to the oden to control your meters plus is off camera even if you're using this on camera, all you do is you get a hot shoe to a pc sync cable and then simply mount this to that hot shoe brackett ok, so that's totally an option too now what does the other advantage? And this is the refinement of the six energy x thirteen I apologize, our secondary ex artie's actually on issue right now, so I don't have it to hold in my hand, but the six thirty ex artie's a little bit more refined in its menu system and kind of controls and so forth, and you'd expect that because obviously it's cannons and it's with a cannon system, and so you'd expect it to to operate together just a little more nicely. So those are the two advances again. Still, my favorite overall for full feature is the photo metro's plus, especially considering if you're using nikon or canon, this works across the board, and they should have mohr compatibility coming out soon for sony and other cara makers as well, I really want to get one of these for my sony a seven siri's they could be absolutely awesome. All right, so these are our three favorite pocket pocket strobes. These are flashes that we can recommend for everyone. Ok, these are just amazingly well built, their very high quality, very consistent, and we can recommend these for professional use across the board. So whether you're an amateur photographer and aspiring professional or a professional these we can recommend without any qualms let's, go ahead and move to the next video now

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Pye Jirsa

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Colin

Pye is a god. His teaching style is really engaging, breaking down everything you could want to know about each example in a fun yet detailed manner. The course is absolutely jam-packed full of great information and fantastic inspiration. This course, as well as Lighting 101, give not only a perfect foundation for anybody learning about flash from scratch, but also have more than enough tips and advanced techniques in them to help experienced flash users seriously up their game. Cannot recommend it enough.

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I'd like to say thank you to SLR Lougne, Creativelive and especially Pye for creating this wonderful Lighting series. Pye has a great sense of humor and he is also a great teacher. He expains everything in tiny details. I love his creativity, all the tips and dedication. Recommended!

Karen Ruet

I'm watching this live and am seriously considering buying this course. I really like the examples and all the information. Pye is super generous and easy to listen to. I also appreciate the talk about gear and am happy that Pye is giving us options for different price ranges. Thank you, Creative Live.

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Our 3 Favorite Flashes “Pocket Strobes”

Our 3 Favorite Flashes “Pocket Strobes”

Lesson Info

7. Our 3 Favorite Flashes “Pocket Strobes”

Lessons

Chapter 1 Introduction

Welcome to Lighting 201!

OCF = Anytime/Anyplace

Chapter 2 Introduction

Wired, Infrared or Radio?

“Pocket, Medium, Full Strobe?”