Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

For wedding receptions I have 3 einsteins and one CYberCommander. I set up the power level with the CC and trigger with a CST on the hotshoe. I love that I am able to control which lights I want to fire via groups.

However, the 2nd photog (CST on his hotshoe) can only trigger which ever lights I have turned on via my particular group setting I have on my CC. In other words, he does not have the ability to choose which lights he would like to trigger.

Is there a way for two photographers to discreetly control the same lights? Am I missing something simple?

Can it be done? Yes. However, with the way groups are implemented, it would not be very effective in a fast paced environment.

Starting with your shot with selected lights, the other photographer would then need to refresh his settings so that the new lights come on and unused lights go off. This would take some time. Then you refresh, and the same things happen. In order for it to work, it would need to be well choreographed and well paced. This is unlikely to happen in a wedding environment.

In order for it work, you would need a CSXCV in the light for adjustment, then two CSR+ receivers for triggering, one for you and one for your buddy, each on different frequencies. Then you would have to sort through who is firing and when.

In short, it is not practical to shoot on different groups with different people with the same lights.

I was crossing my fingers for a practical solution. I do love the instant refresh of the studio lights, and was hoping for the flexibility of speedlights. Thanks for the quick response anyhow.

Speedlights basically do the same thing, but as part of the "fire" sequence, it sends over the power control info at the start.
Off-cam triggers get the signal at the "fire now" point so it has no time to send the power control info w/o affecting the sync speed...the PW TT triggers might be able to support this because it hooks into the TTL info, so I'd ask them...

As I understand it, with the Canon 600EX-RT / ST-E3 system, multiple shooters can have an ST-E3 in their hotshoe, and control the same set of 600EX-RTs in the area. (Each shooter has their own group, ratio, on/off, etc settings saved in the ST-E3, which gets transmitted to the speedlites just prior to the shutter going off.) From reviews, it sounds like a very efficient way to use a common set of speedlites across multiple shooters.

Could the same be done with Einsteins / CSXCVs / multiple CyberCommanders via a firmware update?

No...read the post I wrote just above yours :?

It could be done with two Cyber Commanders - one for each shooter. Each could then have his own settings. To shoot, using his settings, each shooter would have to press refresh, to clear out the other shooters light settings and replace them with his.

The downside would be that changing from one shooter to the other would not be instantaneous . . . some lights may be called upon to dump to a lower power, while others may have to charge to a higher power. Fortunately, Einsteins have a very fast dump time compared to other lights, and the recycle times are fast. Still, you may have to wait a few seconds after you refresh to your setup.