Wireless eBay triggers

>Question- Are eBay wireless radio flash triggers any good?

Pocket Wizards really have an excellent product that many professional photographers all around the world use. Very rugged, low interference, great range, etc… But they are pricey in my opinion. There are other similar wireless trigger systems also available at most of the big photographic equipment suppliers but they are almost all the similarly priced.

On eBay there are many different brands and several different kinds of wireless triggers. Some are very cheaply built, some are 4 channel, some are 8 channel, etc… Even Alien Bees sold a set that was very similar. These are all around 15 times cheaper than Pocket Wizards! So are they any good?

They all have battery-powered transmitters that sit on the hot shoe of the camera. There are some that have AC powered receivers. There are others that have battery-powered receivers, and there others with receivers made for triggering shoe mount flashes.

Personally I love mine. I purchased mine from eBay. They are from a company called Shanghai Jinbei Photo. I have a YS-B Digital Trigger 4 channel system with one shoe-mounted transmitter and 2 of AC powered receivers that I use for my studio lights.

I chose the AC powered receivers so that I will never have to worry about batteries. The battery on the transmitter lasts almost for ever. The battery that it uses is very small. It is the same kind of battery that is used for many car remote pogs, and many garage door openers, so they are easy to find at most electronics places like Radio Shack. Eventually I will start to see that at sync speed, a black edge will start to appear on my photos. That is when I replace the battery on the transmitter.

You will no longer trip on the long sync cord, or yank the sync cord, or have it come loose and not fire the lights, or have the cord get tangled on a fan, or a stool, etc…

The transmitters have a button on top so that you can fire your strobes. This makes it extremely easy to meter your lights because you can trigger your lights from almost anywhere. I once placed my lights up on the top of bleachers and shot a basketball game from around 80ft away with no problems.

I have used mine for over 6 years now with no problems at all. These are so cheap that if one set breaks or stops working, you can get a whole new set at minimal expense anyway.

I have heard that there are other brands of these cheap triggers that are very troublesome and not very reliable. If I had to buy a new one, I would probably just get one of the new Alien Bees CyberSync systems. I would then have that great customer service that they are notorious for. I have heard also that these are very good systems at a great price.