DaveG
14th of March 2004 (Sun), 15:21
I was - and still am - excited about the new E-TTL II flash system. Yesterday at a
seminar with a Canon rep I learned a couple of things about it though. First I
was hoping (without much chance of success) that the E-TTL II might be a
firmware upgrade for the 10D. According to the Canon rep it won't be, sigh ...
More troubling is that not all of the Canon EOS lenses will be compatible with
E-TTL II.
If you go to http://www.usa.canon.com/eflenses/pdf/spec.pdf and look at the
left hand column you'll see lenses with two asterisks. They will be the lenses that
are E-TTL II enabled. The rep pointed out that most of the lenses that were not
E-TTL II enabled were very inexpensive and it was doubtful that many people
would put $150 lenses on a $4500 US camera. But some of the non-enabled
lenses are very popular and not particularly cheap including both of the 50 mm
lenses, the f1.8 and the f1.4 and many of the other fixed focal length lenses.
Generally if Canon offers two lenses in a specific focal length, the non
E-TTL II enabled lens is the slower one. For example the 28mm f1.8 is E-TTL II
enabled while the 28 mm f2.8 is not. But the 85 f1.2 is not E-TTL II enabled while
the 85mm f1.8 is, although maybe that’s a typo. In any case consumers should
have a look at the Canon list to see where they stand.
The Canon rep was asked a pointed question about whether third party lenses
would be E-TTL II enabled and he suggested that contacting the lens
manufacturer would be the only way to answer that question.
seminar with a Canon rep I learned a couple of things about it though. First I
was hoping (without much chance of success) that the E-TTL II might be a
firmware upgrade for the 10D. According to the Canon rep it won't be, sigh ...
More troubling is that not all of the Canon EOS lenses will be compatible with
E-TTL II.
If you go to http://www.usa.canon.com/eflenses/pdf/spec.pdf and look at the
left hand column you'll see lenses with two asterisks. They will be the lenses that
are E-TTL II enabled. The rep pointed out that most of the lenses that were not
E-TTL II enabled were very inexpensive and it was doubtful that many people
would put $150 lenses on a $4500 US camera. But some of the non-enabled
lenses are very popular and not particularly cheap including both of the 50 mm
lenses, the f1.8 and the f1.4 and many of the other fixed focal length lenses.
Generally if Canon offers two lenses in a specific focal length, the non
E-TTL II enabled lens is the slower one. For example the 28mm f1.8 is E-TTL II
enabled while the 28 mm f2.8 is not. But the 85 f1.2 is not E-TTL II enabled while
the 85mm f1.8 is, although maybe that’s a typo. In any case consumers should
have a look at the Canon list to see where they stand.
The Canon rep was asked a pointed question about whether third party lenses
would be E-TTL II enabled and he suggested that contacting the lens
manufacturer would be the only way to answer that question.