Using studio strobes/manual flash with G6

I am considering buying a G6 because I am looking for a digital camera that I can easily use with my Alienbees Studio Strobes so I want a camera with a hot shoe. Can I stick a "hot shoe to sync chord" adaptor on top of the G6 to trip the strobes with? I assume I will need to put the camera into manual mode and set the aperture and shutter speed.

Along the same lines. Can I use my old Vivitar 283 flash with the G6?

How does using external, non-TTL flashes affect such things as auto white balance, etc.

Thanks in advance.

BTW. Are there other digital cameras with hot shoes I should consider? I can't afford a digital SLR right now.

Something like a Canon 300D isn't too much more then a G6. I use a G6 and like it but will probably move up to an SLR to do more advanced shooting such as studio as I learn. The non-TTL shouldn't affect white balance but you will have to figure out the proper exposure yourself. You'll probably be better off setting it manually and shooting in RAW to correct if needed. I'm thinking of getting an Alien Bee strobe to start out. I have a Sigma flash that does E-TTL that could set off the flash using the slave function of the ABs. Right now I'm playing with a clamp on work light and a 250W photo bulb I got at Wolf Camera and some white foam core board I bought at Lowes. Problem there is mixing the tungsten bulb with my flash as fill. I shoot RAW to get the white balance correct. Good luck.

I must be missing something here. What do you mean by non-TTL? I was under the impression that all Canon DSLR's are TTL.
Even worse, I have no idea how TTL relates to the flash, at all. What am I missing?

The G6 is an E-TTL camera. With an E-TTL flash, when you take the shot it adjusts the power of the flash while taking the picture (actually I think right before the picture since there is a preflash that is so quick you don't see it normally) to get a correct exposure. Really works well. It gets the exposure data Through The Lens(TTL), not off a sensor on the flash as some older versions. All recent Canon DSLR's are TTL or E-TTL or even E-TTL II now. I was refering to a flash that itself wasn't TTL and would just fire full power all the time. You have to adjust the exposure of the camera to match the power of the flash. TTL does the opposite for you automatically. I ordered a Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord 2 tonight. Kind of a poor mans strobe setup. This will let me move the flash away from the camera to get a better angle on the lighting. I saw a project online to extend the 2 foot cord out to something like 12 feet or so. Wolf camera has a small flash that is a slave triggered by your main flash. May pick that up since it's cheap and see what I can do with it. Lot cheaper then a set of Alien Bees. Want to save up for a DSLR.

I use a G3 with my studio strobes. One of the downsides is only having a F8 (yours may be higher on a G6) I also use an Rebel XT which is much better for that kind of stuff. Just get a Wein HSHSB http://www.hahngraphic​.com …=WEI990-550&dp_id=&dl_id==

Oh and yes you do need to use it in Manual

Fascinating! It never occurred to me that flash photography had taken up a new technology. I am only familiar with in-camera flash that used a sensor somewhere on the camera body, or an external flash unit which has the sensor mounted on its own body. To think that the camera is sensing the amount of light from the flash by sensing through the main sensing lens is completely new to me. I appreciate your explanation. As you can imagine, my flash equipment, such as it is, goes back to the 70's and 80's.

Since my camera is the G5, not a DSLR, does that mean that on my camera the flash does or does not sense through the main lens? I looked in the specs in the users guide and see nothing that tells me one way or the other. I also do not see anything on the front of the body that looks like a sensor for the flash. I think what you are telling me is that the G5 is probably not E-TTL, whereas the G6 is.

However, your G6 Users Guide also says nothing about TTL, and the list of Flash units compatible with the G6 is the same list as given for my G5 except that my list also includes the 380EX, which your list does not include. Probably, the 380EX is discontinued.

I came across some info about high flash sync voltages on older strobes being dangerous for newer cameras and Canon in particular. I guess I'll have to check out the voltage on my Vivitar 283 and Alienbees.

here is what I found:

http://www.botzilla.co​m/photo/strobeVolts.ht​ml

Bill C wrote:
I came across some info about high flash sync voltages on older strobes being dangerous for newer cameras and Canon in particular. I guess I'll have to check out the voltage on my Vivitar 283 and Alienbees.

here is what I found:

http://www.botzilla.co​m/photo/strobeVolts.ht​ml

Bill, The Wein HSHSB will take care of that problem. You can mount an external flash directly to it, or use a sync cord to hook to studio strobes.

Check out this link http://www.hahngraphic​.com …=WEI990-550&dp_id=&dl_id==

The G5 is an E-TTL camera also. Using an external flash really adds depth to the flash photos it takes, especially with a bounce/swivel head.

Bill, if you turn down the on camera flash you can still use it to set off the alien bees without having any noticible affect on you pictures, unless you are going real low key. At worst, it will give you a little fill light on the camera axis which from my reading is a good thing anyways.

Ok now I'm confused

If I my 420ex on my G6, are saying the G6 is going to tell the 402ex to preflash to evalute the for necessary flash output?

The sensor for E-TTL/TTL is located off the photo sensor. When the flash preflashes the light enters thru the lens and reflects off the photosensor in your case (P&S Digital cameras don't actually have a physical shutter) to the TTL sensor nd detriments the duration of the flash and sends the signal back to the flash. Hence, TTL=through the lens. No all flashes can vary the output, only ones w/ thrysistors can. The heapy flash will fire full power or better yet will fully discharge the capacitor everytime it fires

Thts is not totally accurate. Nom ttl flash can be automatic also. You need to enterinto the flash the ISO you are using and the flash will meter the distance and set the duration on the fly sing the flash's onboard sensor. This i true for thrysistor flashes.

True, I'm not familiar with the original flash he was talking about and didn't know if it was able to be modified or not. I'm still a babe in the woods when you get into complicated flash myself. That's why I really love TTL. With a diffuser on the flash it even gets better. I saw a slave flash for $20 at Wolf camera which looks like there is no settings on it so it fires full everytime. I'm going to look into it as a second light. Kind of like a mini studio. Seems you just move it further back for less power? If I under stand right, if you double the distance of a flash you cut its power to a fourth of what is was since light falloff is exponential. Something I just learned if I got that right.

Hello Bill,

At the risk of sounding like a rebel, I'll give you a brief description of how I've gotten into studio photography (really basic level for the time being) with my G6 and a couple of ancient flashes. I've totally bypassed the whole E-TTL issue here, because I don't want to second guess my own gear. This way I feel I'm in charge (sort of!)

The tools:
G6, M Mode
Canon 420EX flash
Vivitar 5600 flash, manual setting possible
Generic flash, one power output
Two optical slaves, one from Hama, one from Wein (regular types, fire on first flash)
Sekonic 308s light meter
umbrellas

The method:
Mount the 420EX on the G6, set the flash output level to its lowest setting.
Set up the two remotes : Vivitar as my main strobe, the generic as my secondary (background or hair light)
Meter the two remote strobes individually to get the ratio you want. The Vivitar I set to manual, and adjust as necessary; the generic, I move back and forth (light fall-off) until I get what I want - or stick some white tissue paper in front, to reduce output (really high-tech - works great!)
Fire the G6 and 420EX, which triggers the two remotes via optical slaves, and meter the outcome. I typically end up shooting for a combined meter reading of about F5.6 and 1/125 seconds - your settings will vary.

Important notes:
The 420EX will synchronize with the G-Series cameras at up to 1/640th sec, but you'll probably not be able to synchronize any non-Canon flashes faster than 1/250, so be sure you keep that in mind, or your remotes will not fire.

Also, you don't absolutely need a flash meter to get started, since you can preview the histogram to see if you're not blowing out the highlights. But to get reliable results, the meter is definitely a big advantage.

As mentioned above, firing the flash from the G6 is actually a good thing, because it provides fillin light. You'll need to adjust flash output to get the results you want. In many lighting configuration, there's a light right in line with the camera, anyway, so this is a good thing.

So to summarize - you'll need to master studio basics anyway, so you might as well control all aspects of your camera and light sources, and do everything manually. The Vivitar 283 is ideal for this kind of work, since you can control output from the flash itself, independently from the camera.

Hope this helps!

Christian

Thanks for all the good info - the user's guide is useless in this respect.