Who uses the Canon Wireless flash system?

Tiberius47 wrote in post #14165354
How did you get second curtain synch with Canon's wireless system?

You can't.

I know, but he got my hopes up for a moment!

Like others have said, indoors it works like a charm, but outdoors it can be a royal PITA. It's been my experience that even a hint of sunlight getting on either the sensor or transmitter renders them useless. If shooting a model with the sun lower in the sky, I typically have to stand in the shade or their shadows. And even when doing macro work with the flash and ST-E2 about 3 inches from each other, if there's any sunlight hitting anything they won't work. It's too bad that upgrading to their radio system costs so damn much. :/

Considering the price of a new 580EXII with a Radio Popper or Pocket Wizard ControlTL FlexTT5 the 600EX-RT isn't as expensive.

The STE3 RT is a bit more expensive than a MiniTT1 and AC3 but offers more functionality.

Upgrading is a decision we have to make individually.

If someone is starting from scratch it would be hard to pass up.

Does the STE3-RT really not have a focus assist light?

Tiberius47 wrote in post #14165354
How did you get second curtain synch with Canon's wireless system?

Apologies, I should have been more specific - I can get SCS at the end of the 30' ETTL cable with a single speedlite - put that in a softbox and cool things can happen.

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I only use E-TTL with on camera flash, bounced if I can.

If I have time to setup OCF equipment, I use a light meter and manual flash power adjustment. Most of the time I use basic radio triggers with OCF, but I have used a long E-TTL cable to a 580EX II as a master to control other 580EX II slaves. This allows me to do manual power adjustment from the camera menu, which is helpful when some of the flashes are in an Apollo style softbox or otherwise hard to reach.

The main reason I don't use the Canon wireless system more is I cannot get optical slaves to work with the Canon wireless system. Either the optical slaves fire too early on the pre-flashes used to communicate to the slaves or they don't fire at all. With the basic radio triggers, the optical slaves work fine.

Nice it is very good

I bought my 60D when it came out especially to have the pop-up controlled wireless control for my 430EX & 430EX II. As others have said, it works perfectly indoors, even around corners due to reflections off the walls (assuming reasonably sized rooms). Outdoors it works very well up to about 25 feet, but line of sight is important. The A:B ratio control works exactly as claimed. Also, I've even triggered a flash outdoors pointing through a window and triggered it without line of sight from my 60D pop-up flash indoors. Enough reflections bounced out through the window to trigger it.

I use ETTL for flashes both indoors and outdoors. My camera is set to M if I don't want any ambient mixed in, or Av if I'm using the flashes for fill & accent.

pcj wrote in post #14170032
Apologies, I should have been more specific - I can get SCS at the end of the 30' ETTL cable with a single speedlite - put that in a softbox and cool things can happen.

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That would explain it! It's not the wireless system!

Where did you find an ETTL cable that long?

Tiberius47 wrote in post #14173659
Where did you find an ETTL cable that long?

One place:

http://ocfgear.com/

Everyones said it and im one of the lovers of the manual and being able to set the power from the camera. Makes it so much easier. But sometimes i still curse at the w/l function and wanna use a remote.

oldvultureface wrote in post #14173704
One place:

http://ocfgear.com/

Bingo - Flashzebra sell a 24" version too - and I've seen home made versions using really long RJ45 network cables too. Syl Arena turned me onto these during a workshop before he released his book.

I was pleasantly surprised that the 7D had an infrared TM built in. The only real issue I have with it is I cannot shut off the pop-up flash completely. It doesn't pose much problem for most shoots because you can lower the power and the light falls off in most situations. But when I shoot food, I get a front flash fill that I have to flag with Cinefoil. Almost pushes me to repair my old broken ST-E2.
Chris at ParleyShot Photography