Canon STE2 Speedlite Transmitter

I plan on buying the canon 580 flash and the diffuser for my canon rebel xt, the 350D body. I wanted to know if I need a speedlite transmitter for it to and also what does a speedlite transmitter do? I plan on taking pics at car shows and night clubs.

jlozano180 wrote in post #2733082
I plan on buying the canon 580 flash and the diffuser for my canon rebel xt, the 350D body. I wanted to know if I need a speedlite transmitter for it to and also what does a speedlite transmitter do? I plan on taking pics at car shows and night clubs.

What diffuser are you looking at? Many are a waste of money unless you use them in an environment with close-by walls and ceilings to bounce the light off of.

The ST-E2 mounts on the camera instead of a Speedlite. It transmits signals to one or more Speedlite flash units which would be mounted remotely from the camera. From the sound of your intended applications, you do not need one.

jlozano180 wrote in post #2733082
I plan on buying the canon 580 flash and the diffuser for my canon rebel xt, the 350D body. I wanted to know if I need a speedlite transmitter for it to and also what does a speedlite transmitter do? I plan on taking pics at car shows and night clubs.

I use a Stofen diffuser and it seems to work as well as anything else. Be aware that a diffuser will only soften light if it has walls or ceilings to bounce off of. Softening occurs when either the light source is very big or very close or both. Bouncing off of the ceiling makes the light BIG. But in a very large room, or outside nothing is being bounced and so nothing will be soft.

For the car show/night club images I think that you could make good use of the Canon wireless system. But I'd suggest getting another EX flash like a 420EX or the 430EX. Then your 580 becomes the Master instead of the ST-E2 and the 420/430 becomes the slave.

There's a photographer friend in town here who uses the ST-E2 and from watching him I can say that it doesn't have nearly the range as my 550EX. One would think that a device that has to do ONE thing - in this case trigger the Slave - would do it better than a multi roll device like the 550. But it doesn't.

The other advantages of getting a 432/430 is that with the two flashes you will be able to explore setting up different ratios and you can't do that with one flash. The 420 also becomes a life boat should something happen to the 580.

I've attached an image that was shot with a 550 & a 420 as Slave, so you can see how effective this can be.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

I am planning on buying the 580 flash from amazon.com and the diffuser that I was thinking of buying is the Sto-Fen OMEY Omni-Bounce Diffuser from amazon.com. I took pics at a party at this night club with the stock flash and the pics came out pretty good. so is this a good diffuser to get with the 580 flash for taking pics at a night club or should I get the 430 flash with the sto-fen omey omni-bounce. Any info would be great. thanks