a few questions - wireless E-TTL

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

Just want to clear up a few questions about wireless E-TTL that I

didn't find covered in NK Guys's excellent EOS flash page.

I have a 420EX and am thinking of buying a 550 so as to use both

flashes in a master/slave role.<p>

 

1)Is there there any way at all of forcing/tricking flash ratios with

my Elan II?<br>

2)With the 550 on camera and the 420 as a slave, how would I stop the

420 going into sleep mode and thus not firing, or not firing/lighting

up fast enough for the picture?<br>

3) Could I use the Sigma 500 super as master and the 420 as slave?<p>

 

Aside from that, I find that ECF always seems to let me down when I'm

most in need, and manually selecting focus points is too slow (I

shoot events mainly). I've been thinking of changing my autofocus

style (I'm not a very good manual focuser I'm afraid, one of the

reasons I traded my AE-1 and A1 for the EOS system) and to have the

central focus point always selected and focus-recompose-shoot. The

prob. is that I will probably be screwing up my flash exposure. I

could get used to focus-FEL-recompose-shoot though it will be a pain

and confusing to those I'm taking pics of, or I could set CF8-0 and

hope. The problem is that I can't seem to accurately predict E-TTL.

Any Ideas?

[bill_goldman]

1.) I don't think so because if you change the 420EX distance to the subject or place some material over the flash tube, the system will just try to compensate and cancel out the effect. The largest shortcomming of the 420EX is the fact that it has no manual mode.

 

2.) You can press the test button on the 550EX and wake up the 420EX that way.

 

3.) Yes, the Sigma can be used as master in conjunction with the 420EX as slave.

 

I'm afraid I don't have an answer for your focusing point problem.

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

Thanks Bill, Using the test button to wake up the 420 seems to me to be very inefficient, easy to forget, not having enough time, to keep it primed making sure I set off the flash every 90 secs, etc. I suppose that as long as I'm not using the 420 in a studio setup, i.e. using it in bounce mode to lighten up the background, or to lighten dark corners, I wouldn't necessarily need ratio control. If I did need it for a studio setup, I could experiment with diffusing the flash so much that it doesn't have enough power to compensate. It would be complicated to work through though. I suspect that a cheap manual flash/strobe bounced into an umbrella and the 550 in manual mode would be a better bet though it may be cheaper to upgrade body to the Elan 7 if it became a serious need. NK Guy writes in his small article about the sigma that there are some issues with the sigma in wireless mode, I was wondering if anyone knew more?

[nello]

About the sigma 500 super... I bought one because I didn't want to shell out the cash for another 550EX. BUT I quickly returned it because it never seemed to listen to ratio

controls set by my Elan 7E. -At least not when I used the "modeling light check" feature. My canon speed-lites, OTOH, do seem to show proper ratios during the modeling light check. That alone was enough to turn me away, as I find the model check feature very crucial to proper light placement and set up. I wanted my model check to be a bit more acurate than what the sigma was giving me.

 

I would definitely suggest that you stick to canon speedlites and upgrade to the 7E. ECF on the 7E is WAY better than on the IIE and I personally use it for 90% of my shots. (And I even wear my glasses sometimes...) And furthermore you'd get ratio control of speed-lites.

 

Don't worry about the 420EX auto shut down. It can be annoying but its never really stopped me. But then again, I'm constantly using the model check feature to see if my lights are going to give me what I want. (Thank god for rechargable batteries! I also use a very impressive "smart charger" that manages my batteries. Anyone with a speed-lite should definitely get a rechargeable battery set-up)

 

And then finally, you could just buy a meter and some studio lights if you must have ratios. It might give you more control than the canon speed-lite system. However, the Canon flash system is very convenient, compact and quick to set up -which is what I like about it. It lets you set up a "mini-studio" say on a moving bus or in an elevator. Its been a complete life-saver for me!

 

-hope this was helpful and good luck.

[yakim_peled1]

>> "Could I use the Sigma 500 super as master and the 420 as slave?"

 

- Yes but I don't think you will want to go that path. It's build quality is less than the 550EX, it has no CF's and it will fire AF assist beam only when you use the central focusing point. In addition, there are <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005LGG">reports</a> that it's exposure is not always accurate.