Sigma for Nikon good for Canon?

[Mil]

A friend of mine recently change Nikon for Canon :) He use before, for his macro work, a Sigma macro flash. Now he wish to use it with Canon body.
Will this be possible?
Thanks!

[Curtis N]

Probably not, if it's a dedicated flash. We would need to know the model number of the flash unit to be sure.

[Mil]

Thanks Curtis! I will ask and will be back.

[Mil]

Im back:)
He has Sigma EM-140 DG NA iTTL

[Curtis N]

EM-140 is their macro ringflash. DG means it's for digital cameras. The NA designation is for Nikon and iTTL is Nikon's flash metering system for digital cameras (analogous to Canon's E-TTL). What this all means is that it is designed to be compatible with Nikon's proprietary flash metering system. It need a Nikon camera to work properly.

I doubt there is a practical way to use this flash on a Canon body.

[jmb4370]

Interesting, but for the Sigma EF-500 DG Super (and the 530), the foot assembly is set for Nikon or Canon (or generic), and connects to the rest of the flash using 2 multipin connectors... I have some of these foot assemblies, and see that this is so.

I am pretty sure that just by swapping the foot assembly, the 500 and the 530 can be switched from the Canon to the Nikon and back... possibly the same is true with the foot assembly for the EM-140 control unit.

[PacAce]

Interesting, but for the Sigma EF-500 DG Super (and the 530), the foot assembly is set for Nikon or Canon (or generic), and connects to the rest of the flash using 2 multipin connectors... I have some of these foot assemblies, and see that this is so.

I am pretty sure that just by swapping the foot assembly, the 500 and the 530 can be switched from the Canon to the Nikon and back... possibly the same is true with the foot assembly for the EM-140 control unit.

It may be possible to swap the foot assembly that I doubt that's going to help any since I'm pretty sure that a Canon camera speaking ETTL to a Nikon-dedicated flash would not be understood by the flash and vice versa. ;)

If the flash weren't a Sigma, I'd give it a fair chance that it might be able to work in manual mode without needing to have the foot swapped out but based on what I've seen of the other Sigma flashes used off-camera, I'm not even sure that this flash would fire without the proper "signals" at the data pins of the flash foot.

[40Dude6aedyk]

Since some folks have had to send their Sigmas in to get them to work with a 50D, I suspect that switching out an EPROM chip will allow a Sigma to go from a Nikon to a Canon unit. So if friend doesn't want the flash to work on Nikon anymore, he might contact Sigma to see what they say about "modifying" it to work on Canon.

[jmb4370]

The Nikon and Canon foot assemblies connect to the main body of the flash unit using different pins on the multipin connectors. I seem to think there is just one master main unit, and different foot assemblies for Canon vs Nikon. This would make the most sense for a unified design then accessing diferent output configurations.