There is a risk of the lens and camera flopping to the side or forward unexpectedly in my limited experience of using a ball head. This can even happen on a tripod. I will stick with my tilt head on a monopod...

Also sometimes you want to kill the brightness of the ambient light. And sometimes you want to control the percentage of flash in combination with the ambient light. Many people like to keep the percentage of flash at 20-30 percent of the overall light. That percentage of flash fills shadows and keeps the photo from having the flash photo look.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

The only issues I have with sending stuff back and forth to the cloud is it costs money and to a lesser extent time. I did some work in the auto industry during the early 1990s regarding sending engineering designs, solid and 3D models mostly from Ohio to Detroit over the internet. The internet was still very young and the data transmission lines were slow and very expensive by todays standards. So, we sent this design package over the network to see what it would take effort and time wise and what the cost would be. Well it got through the network in a few hours but the cost was over $800 in the per mb rate we were charged. The scenario was that a 24 hour change was needed and the question was whether this was a viable method to do the work. Well but the time the files made it to Detroit the Engineer on that end had left for the day and didn't even look at the files until the next morning.

Long story short, it was technically feasible but relatively slow to send the files over the network. I looked at the time, manpower and network cost involved especially if we were sending stuff back and forth. I recommend that while we could do this successfully it was not cost effective, especially if the receiving end was not going to work with the data immediately. My proposed solution was to enable the engineering staff to burn the files to CD and to overnight mail the CD to the recipient in Detroit. They could do their work and them reverse the process back to Ohio if necessary. In most cases this was more than adequate for most design work exchanges. The cost of the CD and overnight shipping was less than $50 versus $800 plus. I am sure design information is flying all over the world today.

But it was a very different and very expensive world 25 or 30 years ago. I remember paying $1,000 per megabyte for engineering workstation memory back in the late 1980s too. We had a couple workstations dedicated to solid modeling fuse blocks that were maxed out with 256mb of RAM. A cool $250,000 just in memory. That was 5 years income for me at the time...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Burk, good point about printing. I have taken nearly 20,000 photos in the past year and I have printed 2. One an 8x10" for myself and one at 11x22" for a friend's father. Most of my stuff gets posted on Facebook if others are to see it...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

I recently upgraded from the 758 to 858 meter. My 758 had PW radio module but I never used it. I have not purchased a radio module for the 858 as it is a $150 option and I don't know if I will go that way. I would like a radio system that can make full control of my Speedlites and Buff or Profoto monolights. If I wast to fire from the Sekonic too it seems that PW or Phottix are the options right now. But my question becomes what PW and at what cost... The Digital Bees and Einstein lights have a lot of nice features. The $30 radio receiver is a great deal too...CSXCV as you said. Haydon has 4 Einstein lights and the Cyber Commander controller.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

But newer sensors like those on the 5D4 and D850 have a lot of light gathering sites and excellent high ISO capabilities. I think the other factor is the data pipeline and how many photos you can push through the system at what size and frames per second. Bottom line is most cameras are a compromise, some more compromised than others. That's how I look at it I guess.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Some of my so far limited research indicates that there might have been some reliability issues with the FlexTT5 on Canon. Maybe some fixes resulted in the FlexTT6 for Canon. Some of these radio systems are sort of hard to understand what does what, what works together and what features are included. I have 3 Canon 600 Speedlites and the STR3 transmitter. That all works great.

Last week I picked up a couple Alien Bees 800s. So, I am looking for a solution that can integrate this all together and also work with my Sekonic meter radio. That seems to be either Phottix or PocketWizard so far. Or you can go Buff Cyber Commander and use that to control and test fire the lights. The Sekonic then is a non radio using meter only. My friend Haydon here on the Hog is doing that approach. Right now I am manually setting the Alien Bees and using the slave mode to fire them with a flash, sometimes minimal, from my Speedlite(s). That works at the moment but my investigation will continue. The Buff radio stuff seems very well built and reasonably priced.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

That could cost twice what a monopod and tilt head might. Could work very well, but it is also more to transport around.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Welcome Sharon.
It comes down to your budget in many respects. If you can buy a better camera body that has better ISO capabilities that is one way to address the problem across all lenses and shooting situations you may encounter. A body with one or two stops faster ISO capability is like buying a lens that is one or two stops faster.

A faster lens is another way to address the problem but some faster lenses get expensive and there are also so inexpensive faster price lenses. But even if you have a fast lens there are considerations with shooting them wide open...mainly shallow depth of field. That can be good or it can be a problem.

The 3rd way to improve the exposure and lower the ISO is to ADD LIGHT. Adding light can be done with flash, monolights or LED or constant lighting. That will certainly be a way to improve your indoor photos. You have to decide what you can afford to change and which is the right direction for you. We are here to help, but you will get may suggestions and some people who are anxious to help you spend your money.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

I also often have a wrist strap attached to the L plate of the camera on a monopod and the monopod strap around my wrist. This gives me a shot at making a save if something unexpected happens. Which can happen when you are on the sidelines of sports or trackside at the drag races...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

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I have not found anything from RRS that I don't like... I have accumulated a fair amount of RRS gear in the past few years... I also like their military grade Quick Release snap which I use with my L plates and BlackRapid straps.

Best,
Todd Ferguson

Yes, RRS website has some interesting information besides many interesting pieces of gear. I use one of their short tripod bags for storage and transport of my monopod and tilt head. Very nice bags.

Best,
Todd Ferguson