Vancouver Wedding Photographer | Jaylena Photography

So I felt it was time for me to delve into the world of “Off Camera” lighting. After taking a look at the options out there, I decided that the gold standard Pocket Wizards would be simply way out of my budget at the current moment in time. These run at about just over CAD$300 a pop shipped from Vistek.ca.

So off to Google I went. Shortly after some well defined Google searches, I discovered about Alien Bees Cybersyncs by Paul C  Buff and Elinchrom Skyports which are roughly $100CAD per unit (yes half the price of the Pocket Wizards!). These two options appeared to be a good “bang for buck” alternatives compared to the Pocket Wizards and definitely a step up from the cheap nasties found on ebay. Shipping for the Cybersyncs are only from Alien Bees direct in the US, and this meant that the total cost came out to roughly the same as getting the Skyports locally here in Canada.

It was a big toss up between the two, as from what I could gather from reviews online, was that each one had their pros and cons that made them both great contenders. The Skyports benefited from being able to fire flashes in individual groups (up to 4 groups), but suffered from a non user replaceable battery in their receiver units (so effectively this means that if the rechargable li-on battery was to die, then you’d be up for a brand new receiver unit). The Alien bees on the other hand used user replaceable batteries on their receivers, but weren’t able to fire flashes in groups. Reliability seemed to be equal for both sets. So in the end I decided to go with the skyports. They’re made by the Swiss guys over at Elinchrom (who make some awesome lighting kits) and come in pretty sleek and small sized units. So now it’s all up to Canada post! The waiting game begins…