Sven Bluege - Photography

Pixel King and Pixel Opas Compatibility

The Pixel Kings are remote TTL triggers while the Pixel Opas are manual radio triggers. The combination of both triggers if very useful if you want to control the main lights using the FCM (flash camera menu) and trigger the manual flashes for the background using normal radio triggers. The Pixel King and Pixel Opas units are meant to be compatible. You can trigger a speedlite mounted to an Opas transceiver using the King transmitter. While this is working perfectly with my Canon EOS 7D I've got trouble with my 5DMKII.

issue with Pixel King and Opas remote trigger You can easily see the issue watching the picture to the left. 3/4 of the image are black and not lit by the flash.

Here is my setup: one King receiver and one Opas transmitter. A speedlite is mounted to the Opas receiver. The King transmitter is mounted to the hot shoe of the 5DMKII. I used several different speedlites like the Canon 580EXII, 430EXII, YN 565EX and the YN460 without getting different results. Below you can find a list of setting I tried. If the exposure time is long enough and the flash is on the 2. curtain I can get a fully exposed image. With all other setting I get a small strip exposed letting the rest of the image remain black.

Exposure TimeTransmitter SettingsResult
1/200manual, 1. curtainblack bar
1/100manual, 1. curtainblack bar
1/50manual, 1. curtainblack bar
1/25manual, 1. curtainblack bar
1/10manual, 1. curtainblack bar
1/2manual, 1. curtainblack bar
1/200manual, 2. curtainblack bar
1/100manual, 2. curtainblack bar
1/50manual, 2. curtainblack bar
1/25manual, 2. curtainno black bar
1/10manual, 2. curtainno black bar
1/2manual, 2. curtainno black bar


While I did the initial test with a King transmitter running firmware version v1010 I updated today to v1020. Sadly the situation did not improve.

If there is anyone who encounters this issue too or got a solution for it please let me know.

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There is a discussion on flickr about this too:
Pixel King Review - ETTL Flash Trigger/Controller
Pixel KINGS & Opas - some cool compatibility.

Pixel Opas and Pixel King Pixel Opas and Pixel King

Comments (5)

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  • Sven Blüge
    Sven Blüge 6 months ago
    @esquissewei Never heard of such an issue. I guess you're already checked the batteries? I'm afraid there is no firmware update which might help you.
  • esquissewei
    esquissewei 6 months ago
    Hi Sven,

    I have a weird problem with one of my pixel opas. I've put one Opas as Tx and the other one as Rx, and when i trigger the flash mounted on the Tx opas, it automatically puts my flash to "off flash mode". I tried with 3 of my flashes and they all do the same. So i inverted the 2 opas, and had no problem. I guess this is an internal issue of one of my opas. The other weird thing about that defective unit is that when i trigger my camera with it as Tx, it uses a "burst" mode, like taking 3 or 4 pictures in a row.

    Do you know if there is any firmware update for the opas?
  • Sven
    Sven 1 year ago
    I guess it's about the sensor size of the two camera models. Maybe this issue does not occur on a 7D because the sensor is way smaller. I really hope they'll improve the timing for the King triggers with the next firmware release.
  • Meiji
    Meiji 1 year ago
    I have the same issue with King Tx and Opas Rx on 5D Mark II as well. But my image does not have half black like yours. It's really weird fx. I used 2 strip light soft box poiting to the wall. I set the camera (f-stop,ISO,speed) so that I can see the light not bright enough for me to see it fired. Set camera on tripod with Opas Tx and Opas Rx. I have perfect exposure, with both light lit up. Then swapped OPas Tx to King Tx, The image darker and the strip sobox only lit up half way, look like I only have half of the sofbox lit up. I try to change Highspeed, 1st curtain, 2curtain....same problem. Then I try to chang speed to 1/60 instead 1/125, same problem again..... didn't know that if I go to 1/25 it might work ( cos its a bit ridiculous ). Just don't understand how come, not many peoplehas this problem ? Or may be this is just a unlucky combination KingTx + Opas Rx +5D mark II, other than this combination like you said it works with 7D.
  • Ken
    Ken 1 year ago
    Hi.
    Perhaps the method described in the following link can help to get around the problem.
    It is interesting to see the results of the experiment with King or / and Opal as transmitter. If this combination works, then you have access to both ETTL and HSS with the same Trigger/Controller.
    Ken
    http://lilsamedia.com/blog/wordpress/?p=126
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p72unkkh0I