Speedlight questions

I have a 550 EX of my friends and my own 420 EX. Can I use the 550 on my 20d and have it fire the 420 as a slave?

I know this may be a basic question, and I plan on trying it tonight. I also plan on digging through the forum as soon as I am done this post.

What I want to shoot is some Communion photos of my son before his Communion this May. Mom wants the photos and I want to do it myself and my son instead of paying someone else.

I plan on setting this up in the basement using a backdrop for the final shoot.

He'll be wearing an navy blue blazer, white shirt, yellow tie, khaki pants and black shoes. I have some nice furniture I can put him on to take the photos and I have looking at communion photos for poses on various websites.

I know a little about lighting and using a flash, but I have only used the flash in auto mode, not done anything manual up to this point. I have time to practice and get feedback.

I will most likely shoot with my Sigma 70-200 2.8, and I may try a few with my Canon 50 1.8 and the Sigma 24-60 2.8.

I can also borrow my friends 70-200 f4 L or get a copy of the 85 1.8 if I wanted to. I would rent that one from a local store I frequent.

Any recommendations/help are greatly appreciated. I want to improve my flash photography and have some enjoyable time with my son on this day.

Thanks

Scott

Hi Scott,

The 550 will trigger the 420, but only in ETTL mode. The 420 does not have manual mode. You will be able to vary the ratio between the 550 and the 420, or even turn off the 550 and fire only the 420, but all using ETTL.

Hope this helps,

Ed

madddman wrote in post #9774933
Hi Scott,

The 550 will trigger the 420, but only in ETTL mode. The 420 does not have manual mode. You will be able to vary the ratio between the 550 and the 420, or even turn off the 550 and fire only the 420, but all using ETTL.

Hope this helps,

Ed

Just to add that your master flash is always part of group A, when set to fire, so you would need to set your 420 to group B in order to use it in a ratio set up with the 550.

Just a correction, my other flash is a the 580 ex. I mis-typed in my original post.

The advice the other posters have given applies to the 580 as well.

I have found the following Click Here a very useful site. Not the easiest to read but has loads of useful information.

A useful link on multiple flash set-ups is this one - Click Here

Thank you for the links. Will be busy tonight reading and experimenting.

Okay, been doing a little shooting with my 2 flashes. Learned a lot the past few nights and here are the results.

The first two shots were done with the 420 providing most light and I pointed the flashes at head height at my subject. The 580 was used for fill. Flash settings were incorrect here as i had both flashes set to group. And they were firing directly at the subject.

The first two photos were my first attempt.

improve on getting a good white balance. If you can go to home depot or lowes, pickup a gray paint sample and use that as a reference for calibrating your white balance.

I have a gray card, but I was more worried about getting the right amount of light. Not getting the harsh shadows that I got the first time I tried using the flashes in this manner.