Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Greetings,

Not sure if I understand....

Does the light meter function on the Cyber commander eliminate the need for say a Sekonic light meter in studio shots ?

Cheers, Don

It has for me.

For basic flash metering, pretty much, yes. Higher end Sekonics can do some math on ambient/flash percentages and other whiz bang functions, however few people use them, and many that do do so only part of the time.

For most uses, the CC can stand on its own and replace other external meters.

Thank you's :)

Figures, I just picked up a used L-358, sigh...

On the other hand, the Cyber Commander will be on the wish list for a little while..

Cheers, Don

I have a Sekonic L-358 and a Sekonic L-558. The CC has retired the L358 completely. I still use the L-558 outside the studio for spotmetering ambient lighting.

One feature that helps eliminate the need for the L358 even when balancing ambient light is that the read time (shutter speed) of the CC is adjustable. It doesn't give me a percentage readout of ambient to flash, but it does integrate ambient to flash at the shutter speed I'm using. That's all necessary.

I'm planning to sell the L358 to buy a back-up CC.

The majority of my work currently is product/camera on tripod/tethered.

If I wish to shoot handheld, how is the size/weight of the Cyber commander ?

And/or would you recommend just installing a CST on the camera ? If for no other reason the commander wouldn't have to be reinstalled on the camera after metering :)

Cheers, Don

CyberCommander is pretty dang small. Smaller than a Pocket Wizard, even without the antenna, plus it can fold over flat. The reccomended set up is to use the CST in the hotshoe, leaving the Commander free for metering and adjustment.

Don,

The majority of my shooting is just like yours (product/tethered/etc.). I got the CST when I got the CSR+'s and I'm very glad I did -- I end up leaving the camera on the tripod and adjust lights with CC handheld. At this point, I can't really imagine trying to use the CC mounted on the camera while shooting products. Leaving the camera precisely in the same location is far too important when I shoot multiple images for compositing (which is frequent).

One other note: being able to save lighting setups as different configurations and recall when needed has helped me tremendously. If you ever find yourself shooting multiple products in a row where you have to replicate different lighting configurations for each one, you'll absolutely love the CC/CST/CSR+ combo. I do!

Best -
David

Thanks David and TS,

Between your answers and a reading of the instructions, GAS has reared it's ugly head again :)

Cheers, Don

This whole project has been a huge undertaking and is finally coming together. The core goal was the Cyber Commander - Einstein combination. The CSR+ series allows the CC technology to retrofit back to all Buff lights since 1986 with analog remote capability, but requires a good bit of setup to identify what series of lights are connected to the CSR+.

Once a system consists of CC and Einsteins the situation if totally different. CC automatically recognizes Einstein and knows everything about it, so there is very little user setup involved.

Einstein itself is very simple to use, in spite of it tremendous capability. The Easy Set button puts it in the mode set used 95% of the time so it's even more plug and play than AB. If you set up an Einstein studio without CC all you need to do in general use is set the power of each light at the back panel with the up down buttons and start shooting.

If you then plug in the transceivers so you can use CC, all you have to do is set a common frequency and a unique Channel number for each Einstein, then plug in the transceivers and the CC. The "Open From Studio" command on CC finds all the lights and current settings of the lights. From there you can adjust and read and meter the power (and all detailed parameters) of each light from CC and fire the system remotely. If that's all you want to do, you're done. You can then store and retrieve up to 50 different setups and even power down the whole system from CC.

If you want or need to go beyond this, CC allows to to customize the system however you want . . . name each light (Main, Fill, etc) turn the beepers and slave on or off, set the model lamps to independent rather than track flash, switch to action mode instead of constant color, assign and control the lights in groups . . . ad infinitum. So it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.

This is a quick overview of what we consider the ultimate studio flash/control/display system . . . ergonomic and simple to use, extremely precise and adjustable and capable of almost anything any user wants it to do beyond the basics. And, of course, Einstein is a genuine quantum leap in the important parameters of color accuracy, flash durations and power control range, and is global.