EOS 7D & Speedlite 320EX

[rob_ruttan]

<p>I have admitted it before elsewhere...I am terrible with manuals, constantly confusing terminology, forgetting what was on p. 37 as soon as I turn to 38, and so on. I am trying to use a Speedlite 320EX as an off camera slave -- I've got that down. But what I want to do is avoid having the on-camera flash fire, just the Speedlite. Is this even possible? I am beginning to think not!</p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>Rob</p>

[lester_wareham]

The 7D on board flash has to fire the preflash to communicate with the slave, you should be able to dial the built in flash

contribution to the exposure using the flash control menu on the 7D.

 

Look at p123 to 128 of the 7D PDF manual.

[robin_sibson1]

<p>The pop-up flash of the 7D fires twice when controlling another flash as a slave: once to tell the slave to fire a pre-flash for metering purposes (so that is before the exposure) and once during the exposure to trigger the main flash delivered by the slave. The pop-up flash can be set to fire a (rather feeble) main flash as well, or it can be set to fire only the signalling flashes. The signalling flash during exposure is weak enough that it normally has no material impact on the image, but there are circumstances where it can be a nuisance, for example by creating specular reflections in a shiny object. If that is a problem, either use an ST-E2 as a trigger rather than the pop-up flash, or put a filter over the pop-up flash that cuts visible light but passes IR, since optical wireless flash requires only the IR part of the spectrum to work.</p>

[PuppyDigs]

<p>If you hate the slave pulses and pre-metering flash from the popup, use a radio popper with the slave set to manual. Otherwise you'll have to grin 'n bare it.</p>