By Ryan Klos, Calumet Photographic

If you’ve ever sent a strobe crashing to the floor because you tripped over a sync cord during a shoot, or your lighting options are limited to your sync cord’s length, listen up. We’re living in a wireless world, so why should we entangle ourselves in wires when shooting? The answer to corralling clutter and expanding your distance in studio shooting, while still triggering your strobes, is wireless remote triggers. And what comes to the top of the list when anyone mentions remote triggers is usually PocketWizards.

Wireless shooting has never been simpler or more reliable. The PocketWizard Plus II is easy to use—plug it in, turn it on and shoot—and the instruction manual clearly explains anything that may not be intuitive. The PocketWizard Plus II is a receiver and transmitter in one so there’s no need to buy two different units, and you don’t need to worry whether you’ve brought the right ones with you. With the Plus II, you’ve always got the right one. By default the Plus II is always in receiver mode until it senses a trigger pulse from the camera’s hotshoe, then it quickly switches to transmitter mode.

The Product
The PocketWizard Plus II is quite large given its function—about 6.25" high including the antenna and shoe mount, and about 1.4" thick. It uses two AA batteries, which account for much of its bulk, with a hinged battery door. The hard plastic body (made of tough, highly chemical resistant ABS plastic) feels a bit hollow, but I’m no engineer. Maybe they need all that extra room inside for something. The test button is large enough to pinpoint, even with chubby fingers, and the channel and transmit mode selection sliders move easily and snap firmly into the desired setting. The antennas are coated in rubber and are somewhat flexible, but I wouldn’t put too much pressure on them left or right for fear of breaking or damaging them. This makes it difficult to just toss them in your gear bag when heading out to location shoots; you’ll want to take care to make sure the antennas are protected. On the top of each unit is a small hole for the included strap which makes hanging the receiving unit on your lights or stands a cinch. On the back of each Plus II is a 1/4-20 female mounting thread for special mounting purposes. Finally, the PocketWizard Plus II has a working range of 1,600 feet, which currently blows away any near competitor by about 1,000 feet.

Using the PocketWizard Plus II
I used my set of PocketWizard Plus II triggers with my Travelite strobes and Canon EOS 30D in a standard remote flash triggering configuration. I attached one PocketWizard Plus II on my 30D and one to my key Travelite with a PocketWizard flash sync cable. I made sure each transceiver was set to channel one and transmit mode to “both,” and began shooting.

Shooting with the PocketWizard Plus II's was a joy. Not once did they misfire as my current remote triggers (not PocketWizards) randomly do on their own, and they fired for every shot, never missing their cue. Not that I should be surprised, but I felt more confident shooting with the PocketWizards because I didn’t have to explain to my model why my strobes just went off without my doing anything. While my studio is relatively small, I didn’t experience any communication problems between transceivers. It didn’t take long before I got so comfortable that I hardly noticed the 6.25" of plastic sprouting from the top of my camera.

Using the Pre-Trigger Cable
One of the coolest things you can do with the PocketWizard Plus II is remotely trigger your camera. By adding a pre-trigger cable in the mix of PocketWizardry, you can put your camera in places you can’t go or don’t want to be. The pre-trigger cable basically invokes the half-press on your shutter button, which means using this function will eat up battery power much faster than normal use.

Recommendation
Given my experiences, the PocketWizard Plus II’s worked flawlessly, and overall I was impressed. My only complaint is the bulky size. In a world where iPods shrink every few months and Bluetooth accessories are small enough to lose in your coat pocket, you’d think a wireless remote trigger system could be a little smaller. But, at the moment, no one has designed a rival. And the cost of PocketWizards reflects that. Current price for each PocketWizard Plus II is about $190. The pre-trigger cable—make sure you’re sitting down—retails for about $145. On the up side of things, this is truly one of those situations where you get what you pay for.

I think it’s safe to say PocketWizards currently hold the top slot for best remote triggers in range, reliability and consistency. There’s a reason the pros are using them. They work well, they’re reliable and they’re extremely functional. Add any number of accessory cords and extra transceivers for relay shooting and you can make your PocketWizards do things you may not have thought of.