Which lenses are compatible with E-TTL II?

[nelson cotrim]

Bob Atkins (www.bobatkins.com) , feb 11, 2004; 11:48 p.m.</br>

<i>ALL EF lenses work fine with ETTL II bodies, it's just that some

(most non-ring USM lenses) won't be able to take advantage of ETTL II

technology. Otherwise they'll work fine, even if you are using

flash.</i></br></br>

 

Okay, so all of them are. But which ones will be able to use distance

information?</br></br>

 

and what about bounce flash? The system reverts to good old E-TTL?

[phule]

Canon has a PDF on their website that indicates which lenses provide such information and thus work with E-TTL II

[bill_goldman]

There are several situations in which E-TTL II does not use distance information, according to Chuck Westfall of Canon:

 

1. With EF lenses lacking a built-in distance encoder.

2. During bounce flash.

3. During macro flash.

4. When Off-Camera Shoe Cord 2 is used.

5. During E-TTL wireless autoflash.

 

Distance information is used with E-TTL II only to verify the camera's evaluation of ambient and preflash reflectances of a large number of metering zones in order to determine the plane of focus for correct flash exposure. Thus E-TTL II works even when distance information is not available.

[phule]

In fact there is a very recent thread that already addressed this issue:

<p>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007LWr">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=007LWr</a>

[bobatkins]

There's an article on my website on this at <a href="http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/ettl2.html"><b>http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/eosfaq/ettl2.html</b></a>

<p>

I hope to put something similar here on photo.net shortly

[mark u]

I think that you lose E-TTL II compatibility with using a teleconverter even if the lens itself is compatible. There is as yet no comprehensive list of distance encoding lenses that have the EF mount - only the current Canon lenses have been formally listed. Several older lenses have been identified as compatible, including a 35-105 kit lens that dates from about 1991. OTOH e.g. the 28-70 f/2.8L is not. I haven't seen the beginnings of a list for third party lenses.