Cactus V5 Wireless Flash Trigger Set

I recently had the privilege of Beta testing the new Cactus V5 Duo Wireless Flash Trigger during its development phase. Now that the veil of secrecy has been lifted, I’m happy to report that this new trigger is a big leap forward over its predecessor, the V4, and it gives a good run for the money to any other flash triggers on the market.

Those of you who saw the original version of my flash portrait photography course know that I’ve been a fan of Cactus triggers since their venerable Cactus V2 unit (if anything can be called venerable in an industry where new and improved hardware appears every six months).

Now, with the V5, Cactus has taken a completely new approach, abandoning the dedicated transmitter and receiver units for a new transceiver that can serve in either role with the flip of a switch.

Detachable foot creates a flash stand

The new design is handsomely futuristic, looking like a bar of soap from Darth Vader’s shower, and it now has a detachable plastic foot, so the unit can support a stand-alone flash on any flat surface.

For mounting, the V5 includes a female threaded coupling on the bottom, allowing you to screw it directly onto a light stand without any kind of shoe or bracket required.  And it has a nice high-quality metal foot on the bottom for mounting in standard hot or cold shoes.

The unit is powered by two standard AAA batteries (a huge advantage over past models and competitors that require a funky CR2 battery), concealed in a nifty spring-loaded tray that pops out at a touch.

Mounts easily on an umbrella bracket with a cold shoe attachment

As for performance, I found the V5 to be flawless, as did most of the other Beta test group.  As with competing brands that operate in the 2.4 GHz range, the V5, for me, was rock solid, with no interference and no misfires.  The V5 boasts 16 channels that you can select with a dial, and even something the manufacturer calls “Frequency Self Tune” which is supposed to help keep the units firing in extreme weather conditions.  (I’ll have to take their word for that, since I live in San Diego where an “extreme weather condition” might be an unexpected drop from 70 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Hot shoe on top—but no TTL pass-through.

Only one feature disappointed me on the V5, and that was the lack of TTL-pass-through on the hot shoe atop the unit.  Of course, it’s great to have that shoe there—it allows you to mount a flash on the unit while it’s on your camera, perhaps to provide some on-axis fill light.  That’s great. Trouble is, that flash has to be set manually, just like the remotes, instead of working in TTL mode to adjust its exposure or help with auto-focus.  By contrast the Phottix Strato, which I reviewed recently, has a hot-shoe with TTL pass-through atop its transmitter, and I have found that feature very useful.  Maybe in the Cactus V6…

The V5 also works as a Wireless shutter release for most cameras, but I was unable to test that at the time of this writing because I haven’t yet received the connecting cable.  I hope to update this part of the review when I get a chance to test that feature.

Summarizing  the Pros and Cons as I see them:

PROS

• Slick design
• Good construction
• AAA batteries (an advantage over the competing RF-602)
• Detachable stand-alone foot
• Flawless 2.4 GHz reliability
• Long range (100+ meters)
• Wireless shutter release

CONS

• Lack of TTL pass-through (compare to Strato)
• Somewhat large and bulky (compare to Yongnuo RF-602) in the camera bag

The Cactus V5 can be purchased from the Gadget Infinity website here:

http://www.gadgetinfinity.com

Given the high quality, reliability, long range, convenient features, and favorable price, I expect these triggers to become quite popular.

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Footnote: If you want to know how triggers like this are used, check out my course on off-camera flash portrait photography where you can see me use and explain this kind of gear in great detail.

Phottix sent me a pre-release set of these new triggers to test, and now that the product is on the market I can finally talk about it.

I love this trigger. It’s got all the 2.4 GHz reliability of the Yongnuo RF-602 (previously my favorite in the low-budget trigger market), but with the added advantage of a TTL-pass-through hot shoe.

If you don’t know what the heck that means, or why it might be useful, then watch the video!

And if you buy a Strato from the link below you’ll help keep me fueled with beer (which leads directly to an increase in the quantity, if not always quality, of my photography and tutorial production).

Phottix Online Store Strato Page

If you own a detachable Speedlite-style flash, and you are shooting with it on your camera, you are wasting your investment in that expensive flash.

Face it, on-camera flash sucks. It drains the life out of your subject and makes everyone look like they are posing for a police line-up or a driver’s license photo.

You gotta get that flash off your camera!

The video above is my YouTube “commercial” for my off-camera flash course. Frankly I don’t know if it’s cheesy or if it’s cool, but I had fun making it, and people seem to love it on YouTube, so I thought I’d share it with you here.