AND NOW A FLASH QUESTION...

[Steve Parr]

Will the 430EZ Speedlite work on the Digital Rebel?

I have one of these flashes, and while the infrared emitter on the front of the flash and the zoom feature work, the flash won't fire.

Any help would be appreciated. It'd be nice to not have to drop more bucks on a new flash if I don't have to.

Thanks...

Steve

[Tom W]

No, it won't. You need to use one of Canon's EX series flash units.

[shaun3000]

A short, over-simplified explanation.

The EZ series uses straight TTL (through the lens) flash metering. The camera meters the light reflected off the film. When enough light has been reflected, it shuts the flash off.

The EX series is E-TTL (E=electronic) Instead of metering off the film it meters using a pre-flash fired a split-second before the main flash. In theory, it can determine how much light is needed to sufficiently illuminate the scene. As many frustrated Canon users have seen, it doesn't always work that well. Canon introduced E-TTL II about a year ago which takes distance into consideration as well as a few other things. Much better flash exposures. That doesn't matter as E-TTL II is in the camera so any EX series flash will work with it, so long as your camera supports it.

Why won't an EZ flash work on a Canon digital camera? The reflective properties of the CMOS sensor are very different than that of film. The sensor is made of silicon, which is basically glass. Film is made of plastic. To get a proper reading off the glass sensor would be next to impossible. Your flash exposures would be all over the place. So TTL flash metering is disabled on Canon's digital SLRs. The only flashes that work are E-TTL (EX from Canon) or other flashes that don't meter through the lens, such as some Metz and Sunpak cameras. (They use a totally different system, I won't get into that)

Edit: Changed EX to EZ at the beginning of the last paragraph. Oops :o

[Andy_T]

A short, over-simplified explanation.


Sometimes, simplicity is not all bad :wink:

Why not just say ...

"Technically yes, but it will only work fully manual (no automatic flash exposure)"

Best regards,
Andy

[scottbergerphoto]

There is lots of useful information in the EOS Flash Sticky.
Scott

[Steve Parr]

Thanks!

I was hoping to avoid dropping a few hundred bucks on a flash, and thought I might be well on my way when I heard the zoom motor whirring along.

C'est la vie...

Steve