ETTL off camera flash

rgrebby

rgrebby

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Richard
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I read something and it said that you could fire a flash off camera using ETTL if you pop up your on camera flash as well.

I have a Canon 400D and my flash although crappy is a bower SFD35C. It has an ETTL light on the back but when I tried it nothing happens.

Am I way off base?
 
Dont know how the Cannon's work, but on the Nikon you have to change the flash to commander mode in the menu for off camera to communicate (y)
 
The only ways that a flash can be used off-camera in e-TTL mode is by using an off-shoe cord or by using either a flash with a 'master' capability (550, 580) or the ST-E2. The Canon's don't have any kind of 'commander' or 'master' capability built-in to the camera.
 
Nikon allow you to control flash off-camera with the onboard flash. I think Sony and Olympus also do it but Canon don't (how kind). Its things like this that are important when buying into a Camera system (I ended up with Canon despite there lack on onboard flash control because I love the system and it comes with DPP for free. Go figure).

Although the radio triggers are good I love having off camera eTTL. I have a cable and have been flash syncing at 1/8000th sec, having great fun photographing dripping taps.

I am seriously looking at ST-E2 which is basically the Speedlite 55EX without the flash head.
 
My Oly E-420 will fire an Oly gun, provided it's the wireless type. There's a red section on the gun that has to be in line of sight of the pop up flash. Then both the flashgun and camera have to be set to wireless mode.
 
The red bit is the infra red receiver. If you are using it indoors then you can sometimes bounce the signal off a wall so you don't need direct line of sight between the camera and flash.
 
I have the ST-E2 transmitter - handy piece of kit when used indoors. Not so clever if you do much photography outdoors though!
 
The ST-E2 works using infra red so as Richard says, it's good indoors and you can also set lighting ratios using two flashes. However outdoors, it's not too clever. I switch to using radio triggers outdoors as they are far more reliable.

My only mistake with that was buying a 580Ex Mk1 and it does not have a PC cable socket so I can't use the radio triggers to fire that one. I've also got a couple of vivitars so I use those outdoors. With radio triggers you don't get any ETTL, it's all manual by the seat of the pants stuff but actually that's fun!

It can be a bit of a minefield getting the right kit to do what you want.
 
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