Phottix Atlas Wireless Flash Trigger Review and Tips

Hey fellow photographer, how is it going? I’m Michael Zelbel and today I would like to
show you some tricks you can do with some affordable and see to use radio remote
triggers and of course with the speed lights.

Today, I’m going to shoot a bunch of my photos of my dear wife Emily just for fun and
in order to try out our latest toy it’s this, you see a Phottix Atlas Radio remote trigger. I
haven’t used them before but I guess by the end of the day we will all see what you can
do with them. What you cannot do with them, what rocks and what sucks.

Now wouldn’t it would be wonderful if the sun would break through the trees and room
light all model’s head. For strong beam of light into her dark hair and that would be great.
It’s just one problem. There is no sun but no problem. We could put the speed light there
so I put it at 580 EX, the old model way up into one of the trees and after such a remote
attached to it so I can remote control it from over here. I hope you can see that on video if
I laid it fresh here.

So, it’s now breaking through the trees and hitting the model from the back. I first headed
on 1/8 of the power that was a little bit weak. Now I dialed it up to ½ of its power and
now it’s really strong. And it should quite a few, quite a couple of photos and I have to
say I always use the zoom speed of a 200’s of a second and that worked really well.

Now, we are going to use the Atlas transceiver in the WRS mode. What that means is I
can remote control the shutter of camera so it will trigger the shutter and at the same time
it will trigger an external flash and the two actions are sent now so I can illuminate a
photo viewer flash and at the same time have a remote shutter. And for that I attach my
camera to this boom, so that I can hold it over my subject and position that which is
usually is not reachable and then use the Atlas too as your guide. So when I trigger the
Atlas, the out of focus will find a focus and the Atlas will trigger the flash that can be
twosome or let’s say unusual photos. Have a look.

Here outside on our veranda, we have one wall which is -- it’s not the nicest wall and I
was just too lazy to paint over it for let’s say one or two years and we thought this could
be an interesting background and Emily just wanted to enjoy an ice cream so we did
shoot a couple of photos of her at the wall eating ice cream.

What I’m going to do now is turning this whole setup with the dirty wall in the
background into a sort of studio setup with a clean white background and just have a one
flash over there is which is hiring on half of its power. So much light into the background
and it’s completely blowing out. I light my subject with too short for umbrellas, two
flashes both on 116, both are connected via PC ports to one Atlas unit over here. So this
unit triggers all flashes which is possible due to the fact that it’s identical flashes and I’m
using identical of PC ports so that should work well.

So, we went down to the harbor of this lot to make a little distance test and here how it is
going to work. We don’t have any light for with us, but we have this white shopping bag
and I can simply put the speed light into the shopping bag over here. This makes for -- we
have to put it upwards. Now it’s making for an ice soft box and I will use this radio
remote to trigger this soft box.

We can hang somewhere over here. Emily is standing close to it and I will go along this
bridge to the other side of the harbor and shoot her from the other side of the harbor
which is roughly 100 meter, 300 feet away and I should see her illuminated brightly
while the rest will sink into the darkness. Let’s try it out.

So now you can really see it on video but when I capture her, she’s just a little tiny white
spot over here but like this currently shooting with 300 mm. It’s a longest lens I’ve got
with me but I think it can really see the light is hitting her hard while the rest is sinking
into the dark.

So now the really hot sun already vanished a bit. It’s getting a little bit darker and we
thought now it’s time to water the burnt grass over here and we thought that might be a
nice idea if we take some photos of Emily jumping through the water which is a spring
flower over there which have on the grass. For that, I would like to give light for my
speed lights from two sides. I got one speed light in this corner. Now, the speed light far
out over there between the trees. Both on the lights, stand both on 116th of a power and
I’m shooting very fast here because I really can’t control how is the water is in exactly
the second when I shoot. So I will go like this and always shoot series when she’s
jumping through the water and hope that I capture the really right moment.

My question is, is it really cool? The coolness factor, is that really cool and to try that out
I will slip one small 430 EX tool on to the Atlas. I want to touch a gear because I want
this really bluish light from the flash coming out of the fridge. It’s a perfect threat for
other people who might get up during night to reach into the fridge. So let’s try it out how
cool it is.

So that wraps the shoot for today. It’s getting dark now and with a truth a lot of photos
and tested these babies very importantly and up to it let’s say the Phottix Atlas is really
good, rocks on it, very versatile, very handy. The only thing that it’s missing for me is it
doesn’t transmit E-TTL or high TTL signals and it doesn’t work in high passing
commode, hyper speed and commode but I have to say I haven’t seen any radio remotes
which do that and which are working anywhere near reliable and then which are fun to
work with.

So, I think this is one of the best radio triggers that I have seen so far and I highly
recommend it. In fact, I will post an affiliate link below this video and if you are thinking
about getting used some this maybe instead of getting the next speed lights, you want to
have three or something. Then please go beyond my affiliate link and check them out
over there and one comment about the comment. Please comment if you find these videos
useful, comment below the video and last week I got the very nice comment from David
H, who set he’s left that I will not post every Thursday. So I will continue with that and
I’ll be back next Thursday with some more interesting stuff. Until then I wish you a lot of
fun with your photo shoot and good light.