Originally Posted by crosbyharbison
Let me know what kind of range you have after you test; I'm interested.
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I've experimented in my front yard and on a "gig" with the PW Flex system. In my front yard, I found that I could go perhaps 100-150' with the PW units in "optimum" position (umbrella mount tipped over 90', Flex antenna straight up, flash head as far from Flex as possible, camera-mounted Flex transmitter antenna pointed up) using no other accessories. I found about the same range with the Flex separated from the flash using a ferrite-equipped OC-E3 as well as the Canon CP-E4 external battery pack. I think my mistake was not testing the flashes with the remote-mounted Flex but without the battery pack, as I suspect that might have given me more to work with. Honestly, with two flashes (one gelled red, the other gelled blue) aimed at my large white SUV (Ford Excursion) and a 24-105 mounted to my 1D3 body, the SUV was approaching "speck" smallness in the sample photos (i.e. this wasn't a likely lighting scenario that AA flashes could really handle anyway).
At a gig, I decided to go simple and mount the Flex units in their optimum position and forgo the remote mount and/or battery packs. For an indoor dinner, anything solid in the way could cause problems (but half the time the pillars were messing up my composition anyway). At another indoor dinner, I ended up with the light stands rather far away from the podium, and I made the mistake of trying to snoot the remotes to avoid spill on the projection screen, leaving me with a rather tight window of well-lit area. Reliable triggering for the most part to probably 120', just not used to operating without a local sense of recharge-ready indication (i.e. operator issues).
Outdoor, I struggled a bit because I don't do much flash group portrait work (because I rarely have the power to actually do it, so I shoot natural light) and therefore don't have ambient-flash balancing skills well developed. However, I found myself successful doing a group shot of ~100 people at probably 20' away. For this shot, my stands were up as high as they could go, 580EX II flashes zoomed to 35mm I think, with a gobo on the bottom to minimize near-side white-out. Aperture was f/5.6 for DoF, aperture priority -1EC, and ISO 800 gave me a shutter speed of 1/1000 (which is theoretically the maximum HSS efficiency gain using the Flex units on a 1D Mark III, of about 1.8 stops). Some back-row people are a little dark, but my stands were as high as they'd go, so "oh well".This is probably shot with the 17-40L or possibly the 24-105L. Range wasn't the real factor here IMHO, instead it was the HSS power gains and I'm certainly happy with what I got (except for "forgetting" to gel the flashes with 1/4CTO).
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