AF Assistant only

[miro]

Does anyone know of the way of using 550ex as AF assistant light only? Camera is able to lock on red pattern much better than uniform white light that comes out of the camera. Why Canon didn't use red pattern LED in the camera instead?!?!

Cheers,
-Miro

[miro]

Never mind, I found what I was looking for:

From DPReview forum:

"15. Use the 550EX's Red Focus Assist light without a flash or pre-flash: (Added Dec. 9, 2001): The trick is setting the 550EX to "TTL" mode rather than "ETTL" mode. This is done via CF3 on the flash - press the LCD Lighting button, hold it for a few seconds, and the CF symbol will come up. Click on SEL/SET until CF3 comes up (it actually looks like CF30 since "0" is the default value). When CF3 shows up, press "+" and the value will change to 1. Hit the display button again. "TTL" now shows up as the mode. Make sure CF5 on the camera is set to 0, turning on the Focus Assist light. The FA light will now function normally. But since the D30 doesn't "do" TTL, when you hit the shutter button, there's no flash, no pre-flash, etc. People with the 550EX can now use its Focus Assist light, and not disturb subjects with either a flash or even a pre-flash. I just tried it out and it works like a charm. I credit Mark Morgan and Mike Kuder who tracked down this trick on the rec.photo.digital newsgroup. Note: this tip only works in the "creative zone" modes of shooting, and not the "easy shooting" modes. Further you must have the center focus point selected (thanks to Phil Wigglesworth for tracking this down).