So I’ve had these flash remotes for a while now and I’m just not getting around to reviewing them for you all for a couple reasons. First I don’t like passing judgement on a piece of equipment based on the first weeks impressions, second I like to give you all an idea of the actual performance over a longer period of time to see if this is something that will fit into your arsenal of equipment you can count on. Some times this is not possible or I’ll give you an early peek at the review and then follow it up with a long term update but for these I just missed the early review so we’ll jump into the long term. On to the review -
The Cactus v2’s are the cheap options for radio remotes they have fewer channels then the top name guys, they have fewer options and they have battery choices that may not have been thought through fully in development. All of these issues didn’t bother me and still don’t here’s why -
* Only 2 Chanels – They have two channels to shoot on and I’ve found this to be adequate every time I’ve shot with them. It could lead to mis fires of your flashes from time to time but I’ve rarely seen it.
* Fewer Options – They do have fewer options especially when compared to the top of the line models where you can adjust the power of the flashes and use the TTL features of the camera/flashes but again this is not too hard to get around if you understand flash power and set the power manually. This may cause problems in fast moving environments but if your shooting in a controlled environment this shouldn’t cause any problems.
* Poor Battery Choice – This is the biggest problem I had initially with these units they use a ton of power and they also use a small camera battery to power them. So if you are on a shoot and you run out of juice you can’t just pop in a new AA you had better have replacement batteries waiting. They are also not as cheap as AA’s so be prepared to shel out for the batteries.
I shot with these 15 or so times over the last few months and had pretty good results, I didn’t do any long range tests as I was shooting mainly indoors but I was able to get them to fire through multiple walls and about 25 feet. For indoor units this is all I need and I would guess all you would need too. So far so good.
I let the units sit for a about 2 weeks between use this last time and when I pulled them out today only one wanted to work. I checked the usual suspect the battery but everything seemed normal, the indicator light was showing it receiving the signal to fire but nada. So I switched the units to make sure it was not the flash that was the problem and now the flash that was working stopped it was the flash remote that was broken. I start to look over the unit and easily found the problem, the contact from the flash was no longer touching the contact on the trigger. It seems the springs on the hot shoe of the cactus had stopped pushing the flash down to the contact.
Looking at the materiel it seems like pretty weak metal they used just wore out and can’t keep the pressure on the flash anymore. So without taping the flash down on the trigger it’s just dead in the water.
At this point I don’t think I can recommend these units to anyone who needs them long term, if you just have a shoot or two that you need to use them for they may hold up but don’t expect them to last too long.
If you still want to check them out youself you can pick them up at mpex
