Something I learned about off camera flash

This weekend I was asked to take some family pictures and decided to set up two flashes and use the Nikon CLS system to trigger the flashes. I went over early and set up my stands and speedlight only to find out that the left light worked every time but the light on the right hand side would work sometimes and not do anything at other times. After playing with it awhile I figured out the reason for the problem with the flash on the right giving me intermittent problems. It worked every time when shooting in landscape mode but when I turned the camera to portrait to take a picture the right flash didn't see the comander flash of the camera because the camera flash was blocked by my lens and camera so my right speedlight wasn't receiving any signal to fire.

I do have one Pocket Wizard for on top of my camera and another for a flash but didn't have another to use on the second flash so I went with the CLS Nikon system which failed me. When I get some money I will be buying a couple more Pocket Wizards to eliminate any further problems.

Paw...Honestly save your money and go with some other triggers..PW's are over-rated and have cheap plastic cold shoes that crack easily...Tired of PW ripping people off...Just sayin..

You might check out the Yongnuo RF remotes. I have the cheapie 602s (manual) and they work great. Higher end models have more features, but are still way cheaper than PW.

If you are already invested in PocketWizard then stick with it. I have 3 for the very reason you figured out. Unles you want sell the ones you have and then switch brands I guess.

I'm sorry to hear this, but the info is really good to know. It reminds me of when I took nighttime photos of a ferris wheel. The camera was mounted on a tripod and I used a wireless remote to fire the shutter. I found out that wireless remotes work better when you are standing in front of the camera. Each time I fired the shutter, I had to reach my hand around to the front of the camera--otherwise I couldn't get it to work. Then I invested in a cable release.

Hope it all gets squared away with a solution that works for you, grandpaw.

Shop for used PlusX triggers on ebay. All of mine were purchased used at nice discounts