Do critters like TTL better than E-TTL?

<p align="right"><i>Carp loves to be fried with lemon.<br>

(French cookbook)</i></p>

<p>So when it comes to critters, which way they prefer to get fried

with flash

lights?  In TTL/A-TTL or in E-TTL mode?</p>

<p>With E-TTL there is a delay after preflash while exposure is

reevaluated and then mirror is being opened, and

for some critters that might possibly be just enough of a time to

cast off indecisiveness and instinctively react by

jerking / starting to move away and either breaking the scene (if

they stared at camera before preflash) or causing extra blur.</p>

<p>In your experience, for what animals (if any) using TTL has

advantage

over E-TTL?</p>

<p>(All this assuming, of course, that using flash does not appear to

cause too great a distress for animal in question.)</p>

<p>As always, thanks for comments.</p>

Personally have never seen a difference. The preflashes to main flash timing (unless your talking about rear curtain sync) is shorter than most critter's reaction time and significantly shorter than the time it takes me to depress the shutter release, so I'm not sure I could ever see it and know it wasn't my reaction time.

I have seen posts by macro photographers saying E-TTL is a problem

for insects. You might want to try a search on "macro flash insects"

or something similar if that is of interest to you.

I've heard of people complaining of birds caught in mid-blink

when shot using E-TTL, much like people.

 

I think a big part of the problem involves using slow-shutter

speeds with second-curtain sync. In such cases there can be a

perceivable delay between the prefire and the subject-

illuminating flash.

I am sure this is not a question of rear curtain sync. What may seem a short period of time for the humans is not so for the small critters. For example, the mice are known to be able to react on the mirror slap and spring out of the frame before the flash fires, if they want. The E-TTL preflash fires before the mirror goes up, so there is plenty of time to react.

The question is whether there are animals that do not like the preflash.

<p><i>> What may seem a short period of time for the humans is not so for the small critters</i>

 

<p>Now, if you ever as a child tried to catch lizards...

 

<p>Takes speed of reaction normally unattainable by adults.

If you use FEL, the time lapse between preflash and flash will be even longer.

 

If you work with two or more EX flashes in wireless mode (on a macro bracket, for example), a keen-eyesight critter might even see 3 flashes. How about that?

In my experience (at least for daylight fill) most animals ignore flash. If you can get close enough for a good shot to begin with they are usually pretty comfotable with repeated flash bursts. If an animal is skittish about flash, and reacts quickly, then using TTL would increase your chances of getting one shot, but after the intial burst, the animal would be gone anway. However, I have yet to run across a subject that was spooked by my daylight flash. If the animal is spooked, it was usually by me, long before the flash ever went off. Using flash at night as your only light source does cause some animals to change their behavior. In particular, they usually stop what it is they are doing and freeze. So to answer the question, in most cases, E-TTL will probably not reduce your ability to get a shot relative to TTL.

I can tell you that hedgehogs can tuck their heads back in so fast that ettl really annoys me.