Does anyone else miss a pop up flash on the 5Dmk2?

[tdigi]

<p>Julian, its very compact and light and while its obviously no 580 its better then nothing and much better then any pop up flash. </p>

[tjfuss]

<p>Lazy engineering Hal? Gimme a break! Making the on-camera flash <em>smaller</em> and more powerful and more flexible (bounce/swivel) are conflicting requirements. Sure, there's always progress in miniaturizing components but there are some basic physics at work. More power means a larger flash cap. Period. There's no getting around it no matter how industrious the engineer is.<br>

Have you actually designed a camera? Didn't think so. I have... several (twenty four years in camera design at Kodak). Sure, they were much simpler than Canon's models but the same basic physics apply. Mechanisms require parts and parts require space.<br>

So we arrive at the beauty of having many models in the product line: the customer chooses the model with the best match to their particular requirements. A model with every possible desirable feature would require a truck to move and would be immediately condemned for costing too much.<br>

Getting back to the original question, I don't miss the on-camera flash at all when using my 5Dmk2. I hardly ever used it on the 20D, preferring to use the 580 EX or available light or studio flash or a variety of off-camera strobes. ANYTHING but that harsh, weak red-eye inducing pop-up. But that's just me.</p>

[alexander_c1]

<p>Nope. Don't miss pop-up flash on 5DMII. Matter of fact, never even used it on my 40D. I simply don't like the light pop-ups produce. Horrible!</p>

[hal_b]

<p>Allow me to quote myself, in context:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Furthermore, that little bugger could be improved dramatically to really become a strongpoint on the camera, rather than ignoring it completely. This is lazy engineering, if you ask me, and complacency on the part of pro photogs.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>"Lazy engineering" refers to omitting the flash entirely, rather than implementing it on pro cameras. I'm assuming there is some technical obstacle which they have, as yet, been unable to overcome. Several suggestions have been made already, such as weather-proofing, durability, reliability, and geometric interference. Now don't get smirky with me about who has more experience designing what, because that's not really relevant. I don't have to divulge my credentials to be able to give input on a design element. My input is just as relevant as anyone else's. I am a photographer, and that is what matters here. Plus, you don't want to get into the credentials game, because you will be surprised by who will trump you. There's always someone smarter than you.</p>

<p>I have some suggestions on how to improve the PUF on each of the points I made above, and I am a little doubtful that it is truly impossible at this point in modern history to improve upon our current idea of what a pop-up-flash is capable of doing. For now, it sufficeth to say that they could be better.</p>

<p>If it makes you feel any better, it was probably not an engineering decision to omit the flash altogether. This is more likely a marketing strategy or a sales decision; a result of market studies or cost/benefit analyses. My personal opinion is just that this is a carryover from the days before flash existed in a portable electronic form. High end cameras always didn't have flashes 30 years ago. They were introduced on cheap, consumer cameras in the 1980s, and just haven't trickled their way up to the top of the hill yet. There's no particular reason, it just hasn't been done yet. Some engineer might have brought up the question once, "Why don't we implement an improved flash on high-end cameras?" His boss probably said, "That would cost money, and we can sell the cameras just as well with no flash." Complacency. That's it. Complacency.</p>

[tjfuss]

<p>There's a couple of points on which we can certainly agree. No doubt PUFs could be improved. The notions of increased power and control are excellent but what is the real cost in terms of price and size?</p>

<p>I agree completely that the 5Dmk2 feature set was a marketing decision but I don't equate that with complacency. It's just the realities of the marketplace. Someone had to decide exactly which features would be included given a certain physical envelope and price point. It's possible that the inclusion of a powerful PUF in the 5Dmk2 would lift the price point so much that the sales estimates would drop considerably.</p>

<p>Sure I take a burn when when you label the engineers as lazy. I've got no problem with being trumped with credentials but my reality is that I've been party to exactly these kinds of design tradeoffs.</p>

[michael_young3]

<p>This thread surely was a stitch to read, depleted sherry glass in hand and the week's troubles beginning to drain into a hazy past. I have a 7D, and wouldn't trade my popup for your FF sensor. :-D (Well, maybe I can be talked into it after I've had a snort or two more.) Among the very best new features on the 7D is the wireless flash controller that optionally also provides on-camera fill. How cool is that? Eat your hearts out, Gentlemen. You would miss your popup too, if you had had one to start with.</p>

[jim_mcdonald3]

<p>@Michael: Such a sweet and mellow post ........ and do I detect a hint of waspish humour? :))</p>

[steven_f1]

<p>Prior to my 5D I had film camera with a pop up flash. Most of the time I shoot landscapes and most of the time I found the flash was not useful. The few times I tried it, it frequently didn't have enough power due to the aperture setting I needed to get the depth of field I wanted. There were only two times where I was able to use it, and it was just barely strong enough to do what I need. Later when I got a more powerful external flash I did use flash a little more, but over time flash photography more useful for pictures of friends and family than it was for landscapes.</p>

<p>I have started to do some wildlife pictures in the last couple of years with a external flash on the 5D with its fare greater power is much more useful. However even with the more power I have run into limitations. Mainly flahs sync speed. A higher flash sync speed would have been very useful this year. 1/200 was too slow due to subject motion and high speed sync setting on the flash reduced the power too much. A pop up flash would have been totally useless. </p>

<p>Additionally of all of the 3 cameras I have owned (1 manual film SLR without a flash, film SLRs with flash, and the 5D) I have had only one develope a problem, the pop up flash failed. </p>

[df]

<p>I have a 50D. Whenever I shoot a social event I always use my stroboframe bracket and speedlite with great results. However, I was recently in the City for fun, and to attend a friends suprise birthday party. Friday night. We'd planned this trip months in advance and I forgot I was supposed to be the photographer. I got a reminder on Friday evening that I was supposed to shoot the event. I forgot to bring my bracket and flash and the only lenses I had were my 17-40 and 70-200 f4 which I didn't think would work with the pop up. B&H and Adorama were closed so I went to three Mid Town camera rip off stores and tried to negotiate a fair price. Saturday morning I found Camera Land at 575 Lexington and a fair price. I got great pics at the party, photo shop took care of the red eyes, and my story had a happy ending.<br>

Better a pop-up than no flash (even though the AF assist is a nuisance), a thank goodness for Camera Land. </p>

[michael_young3]

<p>@Steven, the flash itself is much faster than the shutter, on the order of 1/10000 second or less, and easily freezes motion. High speed sync is more usually used to balance fill flash in very bright ambient conditions. (I have't found any other use for it.)</p>

<p>There's little question that the 580EX is better than any popup. At $450 each, it had better be! What might be useful at times is getting it off the camera, perhaps placing it closer to the subject or ambush site, and triggering remotely. If the 5D had a popup, a firmware change might have been all it would take to give it a remote trigger, like the 7D's.</p>

[steven_f1]

<blockquote>

<p>@Steven, the flash itself is much faster than the shutter, on the order of 1/10000 second or less, and easily freezes motion.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>At low power settings the 430EX or the 580EX will be that fast. However at higher powers the flash pulse gets longer. Using my old hobby electronics kit I was able to measure the flash pulse of a 430EX and 580EX flash at full power. The pulse was a little longer than the shutter speed of 1/200 which is may cameras sync speed. Cutting the flash power reduces the length of time the flash is emitting light. </p>

<p>I was trying to take a picture of a tree swallow just before it landed on a bird house. They are extremely fast birds. At 1/200 of a second and the ambient light there was too much motion blur. Without a flash the color of the feathers were black instead of green. At high speed sync function of the flash cut the range to much forcing me to increase the iso. The birds were too fast for auto focus so I had to manually focus and narrow the aperture to get enough depth of field to insure the birds were in the shot. I had a lot of things working against each other. While I eventually did get a decent shot it was more luck than anything else. I was lucky to hit the flash just at about the same time the bird came to a near hover.</p><div></div>

[michael_young3]

<blockquote>

<p> The pulse was a little longer than the shutter speed of 1/200 which is may cameras sync speed.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>With all due respect, I think I see the disconnecct. No, the flash duration is not 1/200 second. The specified sync speed is the time required for the first shutter curtain to fully open, the flash fired and then quenched of useful light, and only then the second shutter curtain released. This is the 1/200 second sync speed you specified. Anything faster will leave a partial shadow of the second curtain.</p>

<p>The motion blur in your shot is caused by the bright background, not a slow flash. Faster shutter even with high speed sync will not cure it without darkening the background, since you say you are constrained by DoF and noise considerations. As I said before, high speed sync is useful for fill in bright ambient conditions, which this is. The blue sky in your background will have metered between EV 11 to 12, from my experience. (Sunny-16 is EV 15, to relate that to more common measure.) Anyway, since the flash is not the problem, a better flash also won't cure it. If anything, the fill is a stop or more hot in my opinion, and the blur adds to rather than detract from the image.</p>

 

[steven_f1]

<blockquote>

<p>With all due respect, I think I see the disconnect. No, the flash duration is not 1/200 second. The specified sync speed is the time required for the first shutter curtain to fully open, the flash fired and then quenched of useful light, and only then the second shutter curtain released. This is the 1/200 second sync speed you specified. Anything faster will leave a partial shadow of the second curtain.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I am well aware of what flash sync speed is. But the flash is not always 1/10000 second. You might want to look at this <a href="http://www.rodandcone.com/2008/05/flash-durations-for-canon-580ex-ii-and.html">web site</a> (data similar to what I got is posted below). At full power Canon flashes put out a long pulse of light that is equivalent of a shutter speed of 1/175 second. Not a short pulse like most people believe. In the linked site you will find this data which is fairly close to what I had (my measurements agree at full power but I didn't see 1/1000 of a second until the 1/4 power setting. I didn't get accurate measurements at 1/16 power or lower (a limitation of my sensor). <br>

580EXII -- Distance from Flash to Sensor: 2 feet<br />1/128 power = 1/10714 seconds Flash Duration<br />1/64 power = 1/7894 seconds<br />1/32 power = 1/5464 seconds<br />1/16 power = 1/3785 seconds<br />1/8 power = 1/2650 seconds<br />1/4 power = 1/1716 seconds<br />1/2 power = 1/1017 seconds<br />Full power = 1/177 seconds</p>

<blockquote>

<p>If anything, the fill is a stop or more hot in my opinion, and the blur adds to rather than detract from the image.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The blur in the wings is fine. My problem was blur in head of the bird which is not in this picture.</p>

[michael_young3]

<p>Knowing the definition of sync speed, do you still find the 1/177 second flash duration reasonable and meaningful? I'm trying to recall if I ever shot at full manual power and noticed that it looked no different from 1/2 power. Should be easy enough to test...</p>

<p>Short of scrimming the sky with your own colored background and lighting it yourself, this really isn't a question of the flash. Agreed? You'll have to choose which to give up: background exposure, noise, or DoF.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>Michael,</p>

<p>Steven is 100% correct and some 5D MkII's don't sync a 1/200.</p>

<p>http://strobist.blogspot.com/2010/01/know-your-sync.html</p>

[michael_young3]

<p>So now the camera body is slow, too, and that somehow explains the flash duration. Is it too much to say that the less than rigorous measurement that came up with 1/177 second measured something other than flash duration? Sheesh. Forget it guys. I'm over my head in this stuff.</p>

 

[William Michael]

<p > </p>

<p ><em >"I'm trying to recall if I ever shot at full manual power and noticed that it looked no different from 1/2 power. Should be easy enough to test<strong >... this really isn't a question of the flash. Agreed?"</strong></em></p>

<p > </p>

<p >I haven't read all the dialogue between you two guys, and I dunno specifically about the 5DMkII + 580EXMkII combination:</p>

<p > </p>

<p >BUT there are Camera Mount Flash units where the Flash Duration is LONGER than the Camera's (<strong ><em >advertised</em></strong>) "Flash Sync Speed". </p>

<p > </p>

<p >Pro Wedding Photographers and Photo-Journalists (newspaper - a dying breed), both often use Flash Fill in daylight, in manual mode where the Flash POWER is "FULL". </p>

<p > </p>

<p >This "Full Power" anomaly is common knowledge amongst these pros - at least the ones I know. - "the tell” is: under exposure banding (I guess that Strobist link will have examples).</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Flash Power is not technically a "power" thing like we think of "Power" in a scientific sense - it is a TIME thing - as described above (again I dunno if the times are correct - I have never tested it) - but I am ALWAYS careful when using MANUAL + FULL power – ALWAYS with ANY FLASH unit.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Also note that the "<strong ><em >advertised</em></strong>" Flash sync speed for most cameras can be thrown right out the window when using studio Flash units - for example I use 1/160s or slower with my 5D when using my Elinchrom gear - ALWAYS. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >Hidden in the notes section of most Canon DSLR user manuals is a warning regarding this fact - the Icon for "notes" is a little piece of paper with writing found at the bottom of the page.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >So I dunno if you want to refer to these situations as <em >"a question of the flash"</em> or not - but it is a question of getting a saleable picture - or a dud. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >So the point is, assuming that the advertised Flash Sync is OK to go in all circumstances can lead to egg on face.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >WW </p>

<p > </p>

 

[myworkshop]

<p>OMG! :) :) ...the OP just asked a simple question about no pop-up flash on the 5D series...... (OK,...photography is 99% about the study/application of light. Flash has a lot to do with it, so a few tangents are expected.) Proceed.</p>

[shadowcatcher]

<p>Yes.</p>

[michael_young3]

<p>I tested my 430EX II and 7D, and posted the results in a new thread, http://www.photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00Vfqk.</p>

 

[simay_zsolt]

<p>My friend has a 5D Mk II, and I used it in parties and family reunions, holiday snaps, as you call it, in very poor light conditions, without flash, only using it on very high ISO, and the pictures were excellent, much better than my 40D, with his pop up flash.I would not hesitate buying the 5D.</p>

[brian_hutchison2]

<p>I just switched from the 40D to the 5D Mk II. I was thinking about it before the upgrade, and I hardly ever used the pop-up flash. I shoot people, and I don't like the look from the pop-up flash indoors on skin tones. I am sure better photographers than I can make it work, possibly in post-production, but it just doesn't work for me. I'd rather push the ISO or pop on the 580EX. In fact, when the 40D was sitting around, it had the 580EX semi-permanently attached.<br>

That said, if I had been offered the choice of 5D Mk II with or without PUF for the same price, I'd have chosen to have it. For travel when I don't think I'll need flash, but don't want to be without it, I'm thinking of getting the 270EX. Its easy to slip into any camera bag, maybe even a pocket.</p>

[brian_hutchison2]

<p>Meant to say, with the ISO performance of the 5D Mk II, its even easier to resist using pop-up flash. :)</p>