flash advice for a 300D

[MidKnight]

Hoping you guys might help me decide on either the 420EX or 550EX for my 300D, and what advantages has the 550 over the 420

thanks for the help

[DaveG]

MidKnight wrote:
Hoping you guys might help me decide on either the 420EX or 550EX for my 300D, and what advantages has the 550 over the 420

thanks for the help

The 550 is a more powerful flash. It has variable manual power settings from1:128, 1:64 ... to full power, and the 420 has none. It also is the base for the Canon Wireless TTL system.

The 550 is used as the Master and any other 550's or 420's would be Slaves. You then can control the lighting ratios of these flashes; they won't be set off when Aunt Gertrude's point and shoot flash goes off, they're portable as all get out, and they produce a very nice light.

Having said all of that the 420 is a physically smaller flash unit and is still quite powerful. But small is sometimes better than more powerful. It's a very simple flash to use and the 550 is not. All the functions of the 420 are controlled with switches on the back of the flash. The 550 has an LED readout and you push various buttons in various ways to cause various effects. With the 420 I'd say 15 minutes with the instructions would get you there. With the 550 you'll carry the instruction book with you - and I do!

You will need at least two flashes to use the wireless TTL so the 420 could be the first buy and the 550 the second. Even if you have a 550 (or the Canon Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2, which acts like a Master without being a flash) you are going to need a second flash anyway.

With either flash I'd suggest getting the Off Camera Show Cord 2. You can then remove the flash from the hotshoe in order to keep the flash directly over the lens, even while shooting verticals. This prevents the horrible side shadow effect. You can hand hold the flash above the lens or you can get some type of a bracket (I use a Stroboframe Pro-T) to hold it for you.

[scottbergerphoto]

Excellent advice DaveG. The 420Ex is a great start. I used it alot on my G2 with the "Off the Camera Shoe Cord 2". I just added the 550EX to my toys. This past weekend I was playing around with the 550EX as master and the 420EX as slave trying various fill ratios and light positions using the 420 on its base . It's really nice to sit the 420 in a corner of a dark room to light up the scene while the 550 lights the subject or set it off at an angle as a fill light.
Scott

[MidKnight]

thanks for the replies!, i think i'll start out with a 550 first up, then go from there at a later stage

[theoldmoose]

The 550EX will put back most all of the advanced flash functions that were removed from the 300D firmware by Canon, so I view it as a particularly good deal when used with that camera. You get the same flash functionality as the 10D, for less than the price of the 300D and 550EX flash, and you get a nice flash to boot, which you will want to keep if you upgrade your body later.

You will get 2nd curtain, fast/slow sync, and FP, none of which appear in the 300D menus. The 550EX will also do modeling and other advanced functions. Check out Flash Photography with Canon EOS Cameras, http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/, a multi-part indepth treatment of everything you ever wanted to know about EOS flash photography but were afraid to ask 8-). It hasn't been specifically updated for the 300D, but if you read it with the 10D in mind, keeping in mind that some of functionality described is due to menu settings on the 550EX, rather than the 330D camera, you should do fine.

When you get your 550EX, don't make the mistake that I made initially with it -- the master position is not to be used if the 550EX is the only flash in the system (not counting your internal flash, which, if you have the 550EX in the hotshoe, is blocked from rising, anyway). If you set the 550EX on master, it drops its flash exposure automatically by one stop (it's documented someplace in the 550EX flash manual).

The effect will be a bunch of nice flash photos, all under exposed by one stop, for some 'unknown' reason. To cure, place the switch in the 'camera' position, rather than master or slave. Viola! Nicely exposed flash pictures.

Have fun...

[MidKnight]

ok great info there!.

another question, i also have the dreaded problem of under exposed shot with the internal flash, but i read of the hack that can fix this, but would i just ignore this hack if im going to use a 550, or should i still do it?

[rizla]

What is the price difference between the two............anyone know?
Also my sister is visiting me in the uk from canada in the summer, are flashes / lenses / batteries /compact flash cards etc that much cheaper..........??

regards
rizla

[DaveG]

I've gone over the 550's instruction book very closely and I can't find anything that says that the 550 will underexpose by a stop when used as a Master. What it WILL do is to force the built in zoom in the flash to go to 24 mm. This broadens the flash beam so that the slaved flash has a better chance of seeing it. This could weaken the flash output but with 2-4 meter shots it's doubtful (assuming that you aren't using f22) that the flash would underexpose, at least because of this.

On page 15 of the 550's instructions Canon says:

"If the 550EX is to be used as a normal, on-camera Speedlite but the wirelss selector has been set to MASTER or SLAVE, the following apples:

Master: If master flash ON [I presume this means that you've turned the flash on] has been set, it will be the same as using the Speedlite at the wireless selector's OFF setting. If master flash OFF has been set [i.e. you don't have the flash turned on], a picture cannot be taken."

(I've left out their discussion of the 550 as a slave.)

If you have more information on this one stop flash underexposure could you tell me what page of the manual it's on?

[theoldmoose]

Oh boy, you've got me there... I just went back over the flash manual myself, and couldn't come up with it. I must have read it someplace else. I searched through the EOS flash article on photonotes.org, since I had read that a few days ago from stem to stern, but couldn't come up with it there.

I haven't taken many flash photos with the 550EX since I 'discovered' my mistake of leaving it in master mode. When I get the chance, I'll try a bit more controlled experiment (tripod, fixed subject/distance, E-TTL exposure, with and without 'master' set).

It *might* have something to do with the zoom being stuck at 24mm, but I kind of doubt it, since some of my subjects were pretty close, and the 550EX is pretty powerful at close range, even with the zoom head set wide.

Thanks for pointing this out. You certainly need to keep me honest, here. I remember giving the 'change the setting from master' answer to someone's elses posting in a different thread, either here on another forum, and the original poster said, "Thanks! That exactly what I had done." I inferred that he had actually gone back and tried some more shots, but now that I think of it, that was not necessarily the case.

Sorry to send you on a wild goose chase, but I wonder where I read that?