When I first started with Radio Triggers you had basically two options, some cheap modules of questionable reliability that were marketed under a number of brands, and LPA Design’s Pocket Wizards. That was a scant 5 years ago, and since then the radio trigger marketplace has changed dramatically. Pocket Wizards, while still the Cadillac of radio triggers, have had their reliability and capabilities matched and in some cases beaten. In short, the question of which triggers are best has become considerably more complicated.

The simple reality is that there is now a massive number of competing radio trigger products on the market in every product space. The entry-level market, for example, is awash in similar products from various brands that have little if anything to differentiate them from each other. Almost all of the studio strobe makers have joined in the radio trigger market, producing triggers designed primarily to provide users of that manufactures strobes with remote power control and cordless triggering; though many of these systems also have generic modules available. TTL systems have become more commonplace, with a range of products from inexpensive designs to fully featured and integrated ones.

My intent here isn’t to recommend a product. What I use and what I need aren’t what you use or you need, and my solutions aren’t necessarily your solutions. Instead, what I’ve tried to do is cover most of the available systems and the pros and cons as I see them. You then can use this as a launching point to dig further into the solutions you find best fit your needs.

Continue on to page 2 for an overview of features and functionality to consider. Skip to page 3 for an overview of the systems. Skip to page 4 for data tables comparing the various systems.