Pixel King Pro - 3rd Generation

Anyone use these yet?

http://flashhavoc.com/pixel-king-pro-ettl-trigger-review

I received a King Pro and two King X yesterday. I've spend most of yesterday and today photographing osprey so I've only spend a very brief time with my new triggers.

Overall, I like them. They are plastic but decent plastic. Not too far below Canons plastic. Pixel advertises a metal frame but this is only the case for the King Pro - it's probably needed on the Pro to compensate for the LCD opening in the plastic box. There is a rubber seal over the USB and Sync sockets. This may lead you to think that these triggers are somehow environment sealed. I wouldn't say that's the case. The LCD is fine and easier to read than the Canon LCD (which I had trouble reading).

One major problem though: One of the X's I received was DOA ! I had to go through 5 7D's before I found one that (I believe) was fully functional. Maybe this is just my luck. I assume that I will get a replacement for the dead X. But it seems that Pixel may have an unhandled Q/A issue. A minor snag: I have 600EX's and I can not manually set zoom above 105mm with the King Pro/X. I assume this is something that Pixel can fix in a firmware update.

I started out with the 600EX's because I wanted to use Canons new radio trigger. Turned out though that I couldn't use Canons trigger because of a (for me) fatal design flaw in the system: Flash recycle is reported to the camera instantaneously (which is fine) while recycle-done is reported with at delay (which is a major bummer). The 600EX is able to follow the 7D at 8 fps at 1/8 power. But the occasionally the high-voltage briefly drops below the recycle threshold when I shoot this way. Result: Two or three well exposed frames followed by 4-5 black frames when I use Canons radio trigger. Rubbish ! I spend a lot of time trying to report this to Canon as a bug and they acknowledged that this is the way the system works but they have refused to fix it. The King Pro / King X does not have this problem. My longest series thus far has been 10 frames with no black frames. It was my decision to stop after 10 frames. I could probably have continued until the 600EX thermal protection kicked in.

I own an old 380EX. I didn't expect the King Pro/X to be able to control it and it couldn't. It can fire it though. I think it fires at its lowest power.

I haven't yet done a complete functional test of the King Pro/X, but apart for the two above mentioned issues I'm very happy thus far. The set is less than half the Phottix Odin and less than 1/4 the Canon system - and much more functional.

Hope this helps.

A firmware update broad the dead King X receiver back to life !

My 7D can't zoom my 600EX above 105mm.

So I'm becoming happier and happier with the King Pro/X.

Have you found a solution yet for the flash firing at reduced power when trying to use a meter. I am having the same problem. I have two sets of these so I don't think it is a bad unit. Am I doing something wrong

Thanks. My only solution is to fire the shutter like you said. I did read when I was researching that you could fire the flashes from the units themselves but I am not sure if it was a Canon or not. I am using a D7000 and 2 SB600's. The only reason I went in this direction with the Pixel king pro was to use a light meter and now it has turned out to be cumbersome. Also Could you please guide me to install instructions on how to update Firmware. I have not been able to find the firmware and nowhere can I find instructions on how to update it. The only one I did find was V104 but I am not sure it is the right one. It has a RX.bin and a TX.bin file. No clue how to install it though

Thanks so much. I will wait to hear from you.

I did email them. We will see what their response is.

Zoso777 wrote:

BTW, can anyone access their website??? It's down for me for days...that's 'weird!

http://www.pixelhk.com

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The site is up and accessible as of now and the firmware updates are available here:

http://www.pixelhk.com/Download.aspx

Nikon version firmware is here:

http://www.pixelhk.com/Down/DownPage.aspx?Title=kingpronikon

Try clearing your browser cache or using another browser

I just tested accessing the site using Apple's Safari browser on one of my Win PCs and it works just fine. Are you or your ISP running some software that could be blocking access to that site?

See below:

That's using Safari.

I can get to the file but I cannot find instructions on how to install the firmware.

dchamb wrote:

I can get to the file but I cannot find instructions on how to install the firmware.

The instructions are below the file download, just scroll down, for instance, for nikon, go here:

http://www.pixelhk.com/Down/DownPage.aspx?Title=kingpronikon

And then scroll down, all the instructions are there.