Beginner needs help with terms, decisions, advices...

[peter_wang2]

I'm a beginner photographer with minimal knowledge of the technical

terms and features being thrown around in this discussion board. I

need some help.

 

I own an old Minolta XG-SE manual focus SLR and have used it to take

pictures and learn about how shutter speeds and aperture size affect

the picture. However, I think it's time for me to move to an

autofocus SLR. And I've been looking at some mid-range EOS cameras

and have narrowed down my choices to Elan 7 and Elan II. (Yes,

another thread about comparisons! haha)

 

I have been reading a lot of messages on this board and know about

the annoying flashing white light that Elan 7 uses for low-light

focusing....and that the Elan II has a better low-light focusing

assist system. But what I don't understand is, I've read some where

that the EX series flashes have focus-assist on them as well. So

does it mean that if I have a EX flash and an Elan 7, I won't have to

use the annoying flash anymore? Or have I totally misunderstood the

functions?

 

Also, can someone please tell me in layman's terms, what TTL flash

is? And E-TTL? I am just a beginner trying to find out what's the

fuss about these terms. Thanks.

[NK Guy]

>So does it mean that if I have a EX flash and an Elan 7, I won't have to use

the annoying flash anymore?

<P>

You're quite right. In fact, with the EX flash unit mounted to the camera the

built-in flash unit can't even raise to flash its annoying flashes. Though note

that at present only one flash unit, the 420EX, has an AF assist light which can

cover all 7 points of the Elan 7's autofocus system.

<P>

>Also, can someone please tell me in layman's terms, what TTL flash is?

And E-TTL?

<P>

This will answer all your questions:

<P>

<A HREF = "http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/"> http://photonotes.org/

articles/eos-flash/ </A>

[michael_hanisch]

Also note that the "annoying flashing white light" of the Elan 7 can be disabled by using some custom function (forgot which one, sorry). I'm never using the focus assist flash and hardly ever experienced any problems with focusing in low light, provided I'm using a reasonably fast lens.

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

do you really want to carry around a speedlight with you whenever you get low light situations?

 

Do you want to have to buy the 420EX (new, almost none on second hand market yet, and those still expensive) to get full coverage of the focusing points, and that's just for the focusing?

 

Read all three parts of NK Guy's speedlite info site, even after answering your question, it's fantastic.

[peter_phan]

Almost all modern accessory hotshoe flashes have focus assist on them It's that red translucent plastic window you see on the flash bodies. Anytime you mount them on the camera, the annoying white strobe light focus assist the camera normally uses goes away. So, yes, if you were to mount an EX flash on the Elan 7, focus assist from the camera (annoying white light flash) is provided by the EX flash (unobtrusive patterned near infrared light). The unique thing about the Elan II/IIe is that the camera has that unobtrusive patterned near infrared light already on it, so you don't have to attach a seperate flash. But if you were to attach a flash, the camera switches from the cameras near-IR light to the flashes near-IR light.

<p>

As for TTL flash, go here

 

<a href="http://www.photozone.de/bindex3.html">here</a> and scroll down the left side column until you get to "Flash Technology". It's a short, simple explanation of TTL as well as the high speed flash sync (aka FP flash) made possible with E-TTL flash.