580 EX II

Off camera using this flash as "key", in an outdoor setting. Using umbrella or box and having a 430 EX on camera as trigger.
Has anyone tried this? What do you think?

Thanks, JOhn

The first problem is that the 580ex can master the 4303x but not the other way around. lots of people here including myself use speedlites for fill and key lights.

You'll need a 580 on the camera as a trigger. The 430 can't do it.

I've used a 580 as a trigger and another 580 with a softbox. Good set up.

do it the other way around, at dusk, and you'll do fine. Use the 580 on camera as fill and the 430 in the umbrella to add some accent.

You do not list what equipment you are using...so I will add that if you have a 7D, you can use that to trigger a slave (580, 430, etc) as well.

Thanks for the feedback. By the way, one more question.

1.- I still have a Canon 540 EZ. Can it be used in a similar arrangement?

*I'm shooting and liking my 30D. Recently had a cleaning and tuning up. Just like brand new.

As others have said you can use the 580EX on camera as a master to trigger the 430EX as a off camera slave.

Getting the Camon wireless system to work outdoors can be tricky. It works very well indoors because the signal flashes the master sends out to the slaves bounce off walls and ceilings. The slaves can almost always see the signals and fire correctly. Outdoors there are no wall or ceilings to bound off. You need to have line of sight access from the master to the slave sensor on the front of the flash. That frequently means you need to have a non-firing (for exposure) 580EX on you camera and point it in the direction of the slave. The slave body needs to be turned to point at the master.

Another approach, if you are only doing one off camera flash outdoors, is to get a 30' E-TTL cable, like the ones from OCF or FlashZebra. This would allow you to put your 580EX in a umbrella or softbox off camera and you would not have to worry about getting the Canon wireless system to work in sunlight.

john2 wrote in post #13975851
I still have a Canon 540 EZ. Can it be used in a similar arrangement?

Looking at the 540EZ manual, the only way I see to use this flash is in manual mode with an optical slave, radio trigger, or PC sync with an adaptor. It won't integrate with your 580 or 430 in E-TTL.

Yeah, the EZ series flashes don't work with the dSLRs... Not in automatic mode anyway.

The 430EZ I had worked in Manual mode with the DSLR's that I have owned. (10D, 40D, 7D)

It also retained limited auto features like, flash head zooming, flash ready icon, flash coupling distance, limiting max sync speed, etc.