550EX on camera w/540EZ as slave?

[jimmyd]

Just bought a 10D. Had to also buy a 550EX. Still have my 540EZ (which I used with my Elan). Can I use the the 540EZ, mounted on a stand with a softbox or umbrella (with a sensor to fire it) as a strobe for fill or backlight? Pros and Cons? Do I simply set the 540 to manual in this kind of setup? Or should I just offload my 540 on Ebay and buy a strobe kit?

[robertwgross]

I don't think you will get anything going with the 540EZ except with it and the camera going manual mode, which is kind of a pain.

Much easier to "unload" it and get 550EX, 420EX, and ST-2E components that will talk E-TTL with the camera.

---Bob Gross---

[kafene]

Boy, I'm in almost the same boat. I have a 540EZ and wondering if I can use it as a slave to portraits. Have you tried it yet? What did you end up doing?

kafene.

[RichardtheSane]

If you try to use a slave trigger with the 540EZ then the flash will fire at the wrong time.
Reason for this is if you use an optical slave then ETTL will fire its preflash which triggers the 540EZ - and it doesn't have time to recharge efore the main flash.
I agree with Bob, either buy a 420EX or another 550 and the ST-2E or both :)

[slin100]

Wein makes optically-triggered slaves that are not fooled by the E-TTL preflash.

The other option is to go radio-triggered with Pocket Wizards.