What Chuck Does

Cactus V4-2 Receivers

While I was away in Taiwan, I received 3 new Cactus V4 receivers. Along with my original receiver/trigger set, I would now have control over 4 flashes via radio frequency triggering at a distance of 100+ feet. As discussed before, infrared triggering is susceptible to sunlight interference and must be somewhat within line of sight of the trigger. Simply put, the reliability of infrared triggers/receivers falls of a cliff when used outdoors and is well… simply unusable.

In the world of RF triggers there are Pocket Wizards, Skyports, CyberSyncs, and “eBay remote”. The eBay remotes, so dubbed because they originally sold on eBay, have gone through several iterations and have resolved its original design flaws. The V4 Cactus wireless remotes boast:

• AAA batteries
• antenna on transmitter (increases distance)
• flash-shoe mount on receiver
• 3.5mm jack for transmitter
• on/off switch on receivers
• test fire button on transmitter
• resolved receiver voltage issues for compatibility with older flashes

If you look closely, you’ll see that the 3 new Cactus receivers have CE and FCC marks on the front of them, I’m not sure what else is different but that’s why I’m calling them V4-2 receivers. The original receiver that came with my trigger/receiver set does not have this stamp/mark on it.

So far so good. That said, I’ve only used them indoors but I’ve used them at pretty incredible distances (70+ feet and through walls). I have faith that they will fire consistently whereas I know for a fact I will always have trouble with the SU-800 outdoors.