Wireless trigger for studio lights

Stops you shooting with the lens cap on

The timings must be different with Pentax. The RF-602's work
OK with Canikons at 1/250th but not Pentax. The RF-602 is probably
firing a little bit late on all camera's and the Canikons are just
scraping by. Possibly why there's no backwards compatibility with
the new RF-603

Yep, one mans garbage is another mans treasure.

Just saddens me that they locked it into being disabled their top-of-the-line cameras without giving advanced users an option to bypass.

assuming it is simply firmware and not in any way hardware related...
but I'm sure the guys at Pentax factored in how many "They neutered my camera so I can't use it in a way that wasn't intended.." guys against the "Why is there a black stripe on my pictures? this camera is broken.." guys, and came to the conclusion that... you lose. The numbers aren't on your side. But they will sell you a 540 fgz to help you out..if you want a little more reach with the hs flash mode...

I'm curious as to what it stops you from achieving?

I don't know if already posted, but: wireless triggers

May I ask why you want to shoot at 1/180sec anyway? I have done a fair few studio shots in my time, initially we had the light at some considerable power and shooting at F11-F14 at the aformentioned 1/180sec. most of the time it was too much, but we were inexperienced at the time.

Last weekend we were in the studio and we set the light power at F8 1/125sec. So much more controllable. Even a friend of mine had a Pentax 6x7 which only syncs at 1/30sec so we had to adjust for him too.

Now to the OP and his portaflash units. Yes wireless is the best way (I have a couple myself), but you will need a connector that is mini-jack rather than standard jack of Bowens, Broncolour, lastolite et al, as it won't fit.

I have used Pocket Wizards, Calumet and Yongnuo wireless. And apart from the Calumet triggers, the others are just fine.
If you get a black area on the edge on the images at 1/125sec, then there is a fault with the flash unit and not the camera or wireless. Why? We had the same problem with Pentax and Canon cameras on Saturday, and the flash unit (a Bowens) was at fault.

This is certainly not an issue for studios and well controlled environments... and its use fits a pretty narrow scope.
Lots of stuff moves faster than 1/180sec and you cannot always blast out the ambient light with "SuperNova" strobes and a stack of ND grads.

Anyway, this is getting way off track from the intended discussion.
I'd suggest investigating the capability a bit, and if we need to discuss more I'd be glad to do so in another thread.
I mean, I'm not too proud to be proven wrong nor to learn a new way to get around a problem. (but I'm not easily convinced that I'm wrong, either)

Like said it's to "kill" the ambient light when shooting outside, in the studio 1/180 is more then fast enough.

When I was playing with this, I was shooting in a very small room, therefore the subject was close to the background. Even with the light down as low as it will go and with softbox fitted, I was up at F8 (1/180th) before I got exposure, meaning the background was in focus. I wanted to drop closer to F2.8 but had nowhere to go (ISO already at 100). Had the option been there, I could have increased the shutter speed and cropped the black band from the bottom. I am not overly upset about this but think that manual should really be manual, at that stage you should know enough about photograph to know why you have a black band on the frame ? I know, next time get a bigger room !
PS - triggers not here yet

Can't you just put a ND filter over the lens?
f/2.8 with studio flash may not be possible unless you can
turn it down to 1/8th or 1/16th power.

At f/2.8 Tungsten would be better.

Available light at f2.8.... I shot the wife today; d-lite2 from above at 5.0 (i.e. full power), but well over a meter away, nearly 1.5) and another trying to white out the background, that a dlite4 at 6.0, i.e. full power. Triggers refused to work half the time (cactus v4), but we were working at 1/80 and f14 IIRC.

Worked reasonably well, but boy do I need a background reflector....

Bret

One reason Metz 58s are so good. They go down to 1/256!

my studio strobes cannot, but some carefully placed nd gels or white cloth can cut the output right down in a pinch...

True, a lot of the time I won't bother changing the power setting and just shoot through rather than bounce or move them further. Depends what you need.my concern is cutting out daylight though when shooting outdoors.

They aren't much use when your using Studio Flash!

The old Sunpaks of about 30 years ago used to go down to 1/125th but it was actually about 1/64th