Hi Matt -- haven't talked with you in a few hours! ;-)
I haven't been on photo.net for a while (my Boss thinks it's playing!), but Ellis Vener called me when he saw this question, so I thought I'd pop in and provide an answer. I apologize for my long-winded response in advance.
Matt, you are absolutely right -- a Nikon 10 pin remote cable for PocketWizard is an expensive item, no doubt about that! Here are a few "work-arounds" including instructions on how to make your own:
A. Buy the LPA cable, NM3 (list price $76, street price maybe $70) and get a Nikon adapter (MC-25, B&H price today ~$60). Only a little less expensive, but requires no soldering. The NM3 is something LPA makes as Nikon made it very difficult to get the old 2/3 pin connector anymore -- we ended up molding our own.
B. Buy a Nikon cable (see recommendations below) and send it into LPA for modification -- We'll charge ~$20 plus shipping to do a simple modification (usually identical to the N90M3 you'd buy in a store). The charges would be more if you need something special.
C. You can make your own if you are handy with a soldering iron . . .
1. Acquire one of the following Nikon cables (ordered by economy of $ per B&H): MC-23 ($50), MC-22 ($50), or MC-21 ($73). Nikon also has a few remote releases that'll work: MC-30 ($55), MC-20 ($95), and Photo Secretary ($120). The MC-23 is the best as you can make two cables out of it! The remote releases can also be cool if you tap into them and retain their original function. Basically you just need that 10-pin connector with enough wire to work with. There was once a thread here on how to make your own 10-pin connector (thread named "Any ideas on making a remote cord for a Nikon N90s?", January 2000) but my thoughts are that that is very ambitious!
2. Acquire a 1/8" (3.5mm) miniphone connector or cable of the desired length (Radio Shack is a good place for that). Wring out what connects to the tip and what connects to ring (ground).
3. Using the MC-23 as the model: cut the MC-23 in half (yields two 9" or so cables with 10-pin connectors). If you'd rather use the MC-22 see below.
4. Strip back the insulation and shield to reveal the wires. You need the following colors (Nikon hasn't changed this in years): purple, white, and yellow. You will not be using the remaining wires so make sure they are trimmed in such a way that they will not short out to each other or to the shield (the shield doesn't connect to anything, but just in case...).
4. Attach white and purple to the miniphone tip. Purple is trigger. White is pre-release/wakeup. They must contact ground at the same time or the camera will not fire properly (you can contact wakeup to ground first, then contact trigger to ground, but not vice versa -- simultaneous works perfectly and that's what this description is for).
5. Attach yellow to the miniphone ring (ground).
6. Take beautiful pictures then send food to Patrick. He likes pickles, chocolate, stout, and peanut sauce, though usually not combined.
If you want to use an MC-22 with the colored banana plugs, attach yellow and blue to miniphone tip, and black to miniphone ring (ground).
If you want to make a pre-release/wakeup cable (keeps the camera awake for faster response time) you can probably figure it out (note: the camera eats batteries like crazy this way). If you want to make a switchable pre-release/wakeup cable then you ned to use a diode and that's a topic for another thread (why you would want to, which diode, how to wire it, etc).
Why would I tell you how to make one rather than sell one to you? Many reasons: customer service, the information is probably already out there on the web somewhere, we don't sell all that many anyways (gee, I wonder if the price has something do with that? :-@!), I think it's a good idea, blah blah blah, whatever the reason!
If you can make your own you are in business. If you can't, or want the absolutely most reliable and warranteed thing, you still have options.
Hope this is helpful to someone.
