EX Speedlite questions for actual USERS...

OK..this should be simple for some who have used different Canon FLASH equipment - especially those that have been using it for a long time and have gone through upgrades in their flash systems.

Here's my dilemma...I have a lot of lighting experience in studios- recorded and live TV - mostly live news, talk show sets, (non film) TV series done inside studios
...I also have experience in film which is very similar to TV on a sound-stage except for sequence and setup time (much slower and deliberate), but outdoors involved a lot of reflectors and crews to hold them so not the kind of experience that's helpful to my quest for knowledge about using flash..

I've never really used flash much...and when I did it was with a single manual on-camera flash. Which I very rarely used and only in a pinch if I wanted to try and take indoor color photos at parties, etc...nothing that was ever intended to be "artistic"..just capture some memories in casual snapshots. I could have used a pop-up flash for what I did, but I never owned a camera that had a pop-up flash until recently when point and shoot cameras appealed to my wife. (Film and then digital).

Now I'm trying to learn how to use flash in a more controlled way. Being able to use lighting as I was able to in a TV studio but hopefully to be more creative ....TV lighting is generally very flat and generic (was more interesting and challenging when I was in college and our studio was all black and white equipment).

Studio lighting I learned and did was really always some variation of a three or four light system. A key light, a fill light and a back-light...and depending on the background, the fourth light would be a background light. The "back-light" was generally a "spill light" from high above and behind the subject or subjects and used to light shoulders, keep hair lit evenly, etc. - Of course a 3 light system could actually employ a dozen or more lights, but they were just there and were still really variations on the same 3 (or 4) light setup.


Not knowing where to start I having a Canon dSLR as my first digital SLR felt going with Canon E-TTL lights would make sense and keep things easy (they do), but now I am realizing (right or wrongly) I have very little control over "creative shadows"..could be the equipment, could certainly be user error and I know for certain that my lack of experience is probably the most limiting factor even though I worked in TV and film for about 40 years and have about 55 years of experience using cameras..my dad was a photographer, I learned using black and white and went to film school and have a BA from that..all of which doesn't help me a bit with flash.

Current lights (budget was a consideration): One 550EX, and two 420EX Canon Speedlites.

I also have a 24 foot E-TTL cord (from FlashZebra) - Light-stands, umbrellas, brackets, etc.

I'm now aware that I cannot use the 420EX units in anything but E-TTL mode as "slaves" (or even as on camera single light "masters")...unless I'm missing something, they have to be used in E-TTL mode all the time...which is both good and bad. depending on what they're used for an by whom.

And if I understand it (which I may not)...the only way to use the three lights together is to have the "master" and one of the 420 lights as "A" group and the third (second 420) light I can use with the ratio settings as a "B" group ( "group" of one), but I'm locked into having the "master" and one of the two 420 lights set as the same group (A). Is this correct?

So far, is what I have stated correct? Errors? In any regard?

Next - would I be better off with a 580EX (I or II) and the one 550EX I have than the one 550EX and the two 420s? Or even cheaper, just two 550EX units (which I could use as "slaves" down the road? (I'm not sure if I can use any of the Canon Speedlites as wireless slaves in manual)???

In other words, would I have more flexibility with two lights than the three lights I currently have?

Also...assuming (if it's even true) that I would (or might) have more control with two lights than the current three I have, would one 580 and one 550 be better, worse or equal to a 580 and a 430?

I know the 550 has more power, but with the long off camera cord, I don't think that the power is a big issue since I can get the lights close to the subject as long as the camera is close enough to the "master" flash so the 24 foot cord reaches it...certainly it should let me get more than close enough to use the OC cord on a master/fill light on axis with the camera - ? Yes? No?
y between the 550EX and the 430? (assuming I have a 580 as a master)? And what about using two 550EX lights as opposed to the setup I have now?

Thoughts? Suggestions? I've read enough threads here to know that the most likely answer I'll get is to just get the newest and most expensive lights ..three 580EX II lights, or maybe "economize" and get one 580 EX II light and two or more 430EX II lights. But I'm weary of this kind of advice even if it's correct because I know there are droves of people here that never used an SLR in their lives and in 6 months or less are on their fourth body...We've all read those threads. Equipment freaks can steer anyone down into a money pit and yield no results.

I do have a budget for now and I'm not interested in "prestige" of my equipment. I rely on experience rather than how many megapixels my camera has and how many processors it has and how fast they are. I never "pixel peep".

I care about the quality of an image, infinitely more than the image quality.


I am interested in what I can do with the equipment I have now, what the limitations are and how to expand on the possibilities. (How limited I really am)...I do feel a bit reluctant to jump to change since this is new to me and the equipment I have, while being discontinued now was the best Canon had to offer when it was new.

I do like the E-TTL system because I have the need to be able to take photos in some circumstances without needing to do any calculations or adjustments...I want to be able to just pretty much point and shoot and know I'll get a decent exposure using a reliable bounce like an E-TTL system will give me virtually always

But in the studio, is the E-TTL as restrictive as I am starting to think? Or is there a proper way to set them up and get some degree of lighting control with what I have?

I realize that a possible option would to be to keep one of the Speedltes with E-TTL for on camera (or slightly off...say with a short cord and a flip bracket) and then use cheaper manual flashes with PC cords in the studio. But from my very limited experience with flash (but lots of experience with all other components) I believe that the Canon (or whatever higher end stuff) ends up being ultimately less expensive...lasts longer, is more reliable and more consistent, etc., etc.

Input greatly appreciated.....and no, I can't go buy 3 or 4 580EX II units. And while I am more experienced with and see a lot of advantages to constant lighting, portability is a fairly important issue for me....Ideally I want to be able to take my lighting "studio" with me in a car or even on an airplane. It seems that constant lighting is bigger, heavier and more delicate. Again, having only worked with expensive rafter hung lighting, I don't know any more about the kind of lighting that is used for still photography than I know about flash (less at this point). Other than that it seems more expensive than even the best flash equipment (not counting hardware store worklights

Thanks,
D.

Canon flashes can be manually ratio'd via manual power level control, or you can make use of ETTL wireless ratios. In that regard they are no different than using studio flashes or constant (hot) lights. But power levels are restricte to full EV settings, and cannot be dialed down by fractional EV like studio flashes often can.

They do not have a good means of modelling lights, though they can fake it with a low powered modelling function (low power stroboscopic mode).

Wilt wrote in post #10259654
Canon flashes can be manually ratio'd via manual power level control, or you can make use of ETTL wireless ratios. In that regard they are no different than using studio flashes or constant (hot) lights. But power levels are restricte to full EV settings, and cannot be dialed down by fractional EV like studio flashes often can.

They do not have a good means of modelling lights, though they can fake it with a low powered modelling function (low power stroboscopic mode).

Thanks for the reply...I know what you mean about the modelling light...Aside from what you said, the duration is more than a bit short to see where the shadows and highlights are when using a few lights, but I guess it's better than nothing (although I don't see much use for it since it's easy to take test shots....Used to cost a fortune to use Polaroid backs on large format cameras...first job out of college was doing just that..taking product shots at an ad agency using 8x10 negatives..8x10 Polaroids were exorbitant...so far I haven't heard of any large format digital cameras).

But I'm lost when you say

"Canon flashes can be manually ratio'd via manual power level control, or you can make use of ETTL wireless ratios. In that regard they are no different than using studio flashes or constant (hot) lights. But power levels are restricte to full EV settings, and cannot be dialed down by fractional EV like studio flashes often can".


The 420EX has no manual power level control...The wireless ratio I get (sort of)....I think I'm stuck on the EV settings though...If I dial down the EV setting on the wireless master (in my case the 550) that will have the same effect on the slaves ...both the A and B slave or just the "A" which as I understand it is the same output on the ration scale as the master...same hold true on the EV? For the "A" slave? Both "A" and "B"? Neither?

It is fractional, but only by a half stop..up or down 3 in halves if I understand what I'm looking at. I wasn't sure if that was for the Flash bracketing or if it could be left on ...The instructions are poorly written (seems to be common with all Asian product owner's manuals).

Thanks for the input...but I'm still confused.

Also, I forgot to ask in the OP..can it hurt or does it matter if I leave the high speed shutter option on all the time?

Peace,
D.

Hi Delija,

To overcome the restriction of the tethered and restrictive cord - I recommend investing in Radio Triggers. That way you do not have to rely on the limitations of the Master/Slave setup - just attach a radio-trigger to each flash and one on the camera hotshoe - and you'll be able to fire all simultaneously.
This is definitely the way to go to overcome that specific problem.
(I know the Canon 580exII and the MT-24ex (for Macro) flashguns very well - so my 'offering' may be redundant).

Delija wrote in post #10259817
But I'm lost when you say

"Canon flashes can be manually ratio'd via manual power level control, or you can make use of ETTL wireless ratios. In that regard they are no different than using studio flashes or constant (hot) lights. But power levels are restricte to full EV settings, and cannot be dialed down by fractional EV like studio flashes often can".

The 420EX has no manual power level control...The wireless ratio I get (sort of)....I think I'm stuck on the EV settings though...If I dial down the EV setting on the wireless master (in my case the 550) that will have the same effect on the slaves ...both the A and B slave or just the "A" which as I understand it is the same output on the ration scale as the master...same hold true on the EV? For the "A" slave? Both "A" and "B"? Neither?

It is fractional, but only by a half stop..up or down 3 in halves if I understand what I'm looking at. I wasn't sure if that was for the Flash bracketing or if it could be left on ...The instructions are poorly written (seems to be common with all Asian product owner's manuals).

Apologies, my statement failed to state the fractional EV in the 580EX. And studio flashes often have 0.1EV precision, not simply 1/2EV.

Cham_001 wrote in post #10261150
Hi Delija,

To overcome the restriction of the tethered and restrictive cord - I recommend investing in Radio Triggers. That way you do not have to rely on the limitations of the Master/Slave setup - just attach a radio-trigger to each flash and one on the camera hotshoe - and you'll be able to fire all simultaneously.
This is definitely the way to go to overcome that specific problem.
(I know the Canon 580exII and the MT-24ex (for Macro) flashguns very well - so my 'offering' may be redundant).

But alas- the 420ex's don't work with non-ETTL radio triggers...

kayl wrote in post #10261797
But alas- the 420ex's don't work with non-ETTL radio triggers...

DAMN CANON - for their unnecessary complexity! - they should just stick to manufacturing 580exII's!

Cham_001 wrote in post #10262135
DAMN CANON - for their unnecessary complexity! - they should just stick to manufacturing 580exII's!

LOL....Yeah, but they do, so how stuck am I?

It's hard for me to believe there is not a work-around -Nothing has changed about how lighting is used at least in the time I've worked with it and studied it in college (graduated in 1969), so if Canon was only making the 550EX and 420EX before updating their equipment, it would seem there was a way to use it properly.

As for the radio triggers, I don't see how they would help....the wireless system works fine indoors or at close range. I have no need to use wireless flash at huge distances or where there are a bunch of other photographers and being on the same frequency would be an issue.

I only want to know if there's a way to get un-even lighting with what I have....I guess I need to experiment some more. It just seems very unlikely that I'm not doing something wrong...(Even though I have gone through the owner's manuals which are fairly useless, and spoken to Canon's tech support - where they tried to be helpful, but don't seem too familiar with the older gear).

I'm just surprised that I haven't heard (yet) from anyone who has used the older and newer EX systems and can speak from experience. ?

Thanks,
D.

Delija wrote in post #10264466
LOL....Yeah, but they do, so how stuck am I?

It's hard for me to believe there is not a work-around -Nothing has changed about how lighting is used at least in the time I've worked with it and studied it in college (graduated in 1969), so if Canon was only making the 550EX and 420EX before updating their equipment, it would seem there was a way to use it properly.

As for the radio triggers, I don't see how they would help....the wireless system works fine indoors or at close range. I have no need to use wireless flash at huge distances or where there are a bunch of other photographers and being on the same frequency would be an issue.

I only want to know if there's a way to get un-even lighting with what I have....I guess I need to experiment some more. It just seems very unlikely that I'm not doing something wrong...(Even though I have gone through the owner's manuals which are fairly useless, and spoken to Canon's tech support - where they tried to be helpful, but don't seem too familiar with the older gear).

I'm just surprised that I haven't heard (yet) from anyone who has used the older and newer EX systems and can speak from experience. ?

Thanks,
D.

Use the 550ex - set up the flashes into groups and change the ratio - you can set the ratio to be a:b or a:b:c

This still uses ETTL, but allows you to choose how different you want the ratio between flashes to be. You can have the left side slightly shaded, etc.

kayl wrote in post #10264618
Use the 550ex - set up the flashes into groups and change the ratio - you can set the ratio to be a:b or a:b:c

This still uses ETTL, but allows you to choose how different you want the ratio between flashes to be. You can have the left side slightly shaded, etc.

Sounds good, but I was told by the Canon tech guys that the 550 and the first "slave" both need to be on the same channel ("A")...so I wouldn't be able to have three groups, just two.

I wasn't sure that this was right, but there is only one ratio setting - so what they told me does sort of make sense...unless I'm not seeing a way to set the ratio a different way. I was told that the "C" group could only be used if there were three slaves, not two. Does this sound right?

Thanks,
D.

Having re-read this thread that I started a week or so ago, I just wanted to add what should be a simple question and possible solution (if I knew how to implement it).

I read through the owner's manuals of both the 550EX and the 430EX. It's apparent that the 550EX was released before the 420, so there is no reference at all to using the 550 as a master and the 420 as a slave (or slaves).

Then reading the manual for the 420EX, there's virtually nothing but a "footnote" discussing the ways to use the 420 as a "slave" to the (then current) 550EX (using it as a "master").

There's a very vague reference to using an A:B C setup (forget which manual..the 550EX manual seems to - in every case - show an illustration of a few 550EX units, all with an "on camera" 550 used ONLY as a controller..flash turned off. Seems an odd way to purchase what under such circumstances a less effective ST-E2 (a useless accessory in any way I can think of - seriously cannot think of a less useful way to spend close to $200 ).

What I'm wondering is if there is a way to use the FEC adjustment on the 550EX to separately control the two 420EX units - or if I can't at all, or if (assuming what Canon told me)..one of the 420EX units would need to be in the same "group" (group A) and if I change the FEC value of the 550, does that change the 420 in "group A" as well? Or can I change one and not the other in the same group allowing me three different outputs from the 3 units?

Thanks for any help.....I've gotten some great information from Canon's telephone tech support for years, but they seem pretty stumped with this - I guess it's because the 550 and 420 may be too old and they are just either not well informed or perhaps never were. Lot's of "hold time" while they seem to be reading the instructions, but if they have the same instructions I have (downloaded from the Canon Website) - there's not much information that would be helpful.

Thanks again,
D.

Delija,

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this already. Check out Chuck Gardner's web site on the Canon EX system...http://super.nova.org/​DPR/#Canon. He has done a lot of testing by trial and error and explains in English what the manual is trying to describe. I picked up a lot from the information he provides.

Paul

Delija wrote in post #10264902
Sounds good, but I was told by the Canon tech guys that the 550 and the first "slave" both need to be on the same channel ("A")...so I wouldn't be able to have three groups, just two.

I wasn't sure that this was right, but there is only one ratio setting - so what they told me does sort of make sense...unless I'm not seeing a way to set the ratio a different way. I was told that the "C" group could only be used if there were three slaves, not two. Does this sound right?

Thanks,
D.

I think there might be a slight misunderstanding. Channels are what allow you to shoot with other photographers using ETTL and are numbered. All your flash units have to be on the same channel NUMBER. The flash groups are A, B, C and your single slave can be in any one of those. To obtain ratios you put the first slave in group B (the master is always group A).

I am using a 550EX with a 430EX but the 420EX should work fine in this same arrangement.

Note: I just found a 420EX manual and it isn't really clear that this would work. Try it....

Delija wrote in post #10264902
Sounds good, but I was told by the Canon tech guys that the 550 and the first "slave" both need to be on the same channel ("A")...so I wouldn't be able to have three groups, just two.

I wasn't sure that this was right, but there is only one ratio setting - so what they told me does sort of make sense...unless I'm not seeing a way to set the ratio a different way. I was told that the "C" group could only be used if there were three slaves, not two. Does this sound right?

Thanks,
D.

You were told incorrectly! If you have 3 flash units in a wireless configuration, then you can have a maximum of 3 flash groups.

Re the use of FEC to independently control the output of the 420EX units, the 420EX does not have an FEC control feature built-in so that will not be possible. However, you will be able to independently control the output of the two 420EX units by using the ratio feature of the master as someone already pointed out previously. The FEC on the master unit (or the camera body) can be used to adjust the overall exposure of all the flash units in the wireless configuration equally.

There's more into regarding the use of multiple flashes in a Canon wireless configuration here:

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=386863

Titus213 wrote in post #10302315
I think there might be a slight misunderstanding. Channels are what allow you to shoot with other photographers using ETTL and are numbered. All your flash units have to be on the same channel NUMBER. The flash groups are A, B, C and your single slave can be in any one of those. To obtain ratios you put the first slave in group B (the master is always group A).

I am using a 550EX with a 430EX but the 420EX should work fine in this same arrangement.

Note: I just found a 420EX manual and it isn't really clear that this would work. Try it....

Yes, the 420EX will work similarly to the 430EX. It just doesn't support the use of manual flash exposure, even in a wireless configuration, like the 430EX does.