Cactus LV5 Laser Trigger

YOU CANNOT USE THIS ITEM ON ITS OWN. I don't think its made that clear in the description.Just want to make others aware before i write my opinions that the laser trigger wont work on its own unless you buy some kind of wireless transceiver kit first. Cactus suggests you buy there own (for easiness then yes) but i was able to use my own.Anyway, onto my actual review. This product works really well for what i'd needed, obviously with it being a laser it does need precision and can be a bit finicky to set up but once you've got it sorted its brilliant. works perfectly. I used mine in the studio so sometimes the flashes set off the laser trigger but if you stick on the provided hood cover then it solved the problem. I really like this, i can't fault it. Ive attached a picture of my studio set up that I'm using for my university studies just to give an idea of the kind of thing this product can be used for :)One more thing, yes i did pay extra for a faster delivery but it was still a 3 - 5 working day delivery plan. I emailed them regarding this stating my desperation in needing it earlier and they were so polite. I'm not sure if they went out of their way to get it to me quick because of my email or whether they just so happened to be posting it fast anyway. but still either way, it got to me within 2 days and they were nothing but helpful. :)

Had some problems with the connection cords for the Camera, but when I got it to work, its brilliant. Make sure you've got the right connector for your camera

I have had my LV5 for around a year and used it for various projects - like flight photographs of birds coming to my garden feeders. I find that it works well.First thing to say - the review by user Jetta who says you can't use it without extra equipment is complete bollox! It comes with a cable that plugs in to the remote release socket on your camera. As several other reviewers note - make sure you order it with the correct cable for your make of camera. You CAN use it with radio triggers, but you certainly don't have to. Once you have it set up so that your subject will break the laser beam, it triggers the camera via the camera's remote shutter release.My main problem I have with it is the LED on the receiver. This LED comes on when you turn the receiver on, blinking green every 2-3 secs. Once it detects the laser beam from the emitter it goes continuously green and then when the beam is interrupted it goes red. All very well - and helpful for setting up. But the LED is small, not very bright and badly positioned. The upshot is, it is very difficult to see from any distance, and virtually impossible outside in bright daylight. This makes even being sure it is turned on quite tricky outdoors, let alone setting it up so that the emitter and receiver are correctly coupled. If only they had made the LED a bit more prominent and brighter! Having said that, the units do work fine in brightly lit outdoor conditions and you can happily position emitter and receiver impressively far apart.The other, more minor, problem with the receiver is the small dial with tiny numbers to set the delay or freeze times. Freeze is the time after the trigger has gone off before it will go off again. So, if you have it set up to trip when a bird flies through the beam, you don't want it to trigger again until your flashes have had a chance to recharge - say 5 seconds. You can dial in a freeze time to allow this to happen. Delay is the time between the beam being broken and a trigger signal being sent to the camera. For example, if you are doing water drops and position the laser just below the dropper, you want some milliseconds of delay to allow time for the water droplet to travel to the surface of the bowl of water below. The dial to set these parameters is rather small and stiff and the figures on it are really tiny. Because of the way it is positioned, it is quite tricky to read and adjust. This usually means you inevitably jiggle the receiver about whilst trying to make adjustment - and then you have to re-postion it, re-align it with the emitter ... This makes setting up a longer and more cumbersome chore than it ought to be.Once you have it correctly positioned and set up, I find it works well and reliably and I have had some excellent results using it.