Recently there was a discussion started in the Strobist Group on Flickr talking about use a Sekonic L-358 light meter to remotely trigger a camera which in turn would trigger the remote strobes.  The original poster could not get the set up to work.  I knew this was possible as I have done very similar set ups (albeit at the time I didn’t have my light meter).  I went to work later that night on a mock set up to prove this will work.

My goal was to use my Sekonic L-558R to trigger a Pocket Wizard on the camera body causing it to trigger the remote strobes and take a picture.  Pocket Wizards have this feature built into their units, it’s called relaying.  From the manual of  Pocket Wizard Plus II, here are the steps in relay mode.

• You press the TEST button on a Pocket Wizard in your hand (not attached to anything).
• The Plus II connected to the remote camera received the signal and triggers your camera.
• The Plus II switches to transmit mode, one channel higher, waits for the camera to send a flash signal.
• The Pocket Wizards connected to your remote flashes receive the signal and fire the flashes.

I have used the above steps numerous times when I am doing set ups like product photography.  Basically I am using the PW as a very expensive shutter release cable.

Now, back to the issue of incorporating a Sekonic Light Meter into the mix.  Many of Sekonic’s models either have a Pocket Wizard Transmitter built-in or the Transmitter is an optional accessory.  You’ll need to check the specs on your specific model to see.  I know the models that have an “R” at the end of the model name have it included and models like the L-358 it is an optional accessory.

So in the above scenario, the Sekonic replaces the PW that was normally in my hand, but everything else stays the same.  The key is to remember that you need to set the PW’s connected to the strobes to be one channel higher than the Sekonic and PW on the camera.  On my model, the L-558R, I set the mode to Wireless Flash Triggering.  I then set the channel to 1 on the L-558R and the PW on my camera.  The PW is in the camera’s hotshoe and has a sync cord that goes from the PW’s Camera/Flash port to the camera’s shutter release port.  The PW’s (could be any number) attached to the remote lights should be set to channel 2 in this case.

Press the meter button on the light meter and walaaaaa, accurate light meter reading, along with a picture taken with remote strobes.  Here is a picture from my quick set up that night.

Tags: "pocket wizard", light meter, remote trigger, sekonic

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.