Need help with off camera lighting and Canon Flash

[praline3001]

Thanks for the links. I am at home with pneumonia right now. I have been fighting it for 10 days and have been to the doc twice. I can't go anywhere and doing anything active makes me lose my breath in 10 seconds flat I am usually a very active person so this illness prison is driving me insane .. ESPECIALLY having a brand new camera I can't go out and play with

Reading all this is keeping me busy and gives me the time to learn the techniques before going out in the field.

[spcandrew]

Reading through this thread, I don't remember seeing what kind of photography you are trying to do with your lighting? Is it primarily portraits or studio type work? That would determine really how much of a need you have for E-TTL. Basically, E-TTL lets the camera meter the scene and determine how much flash is required as well as lets you do high-speed sync (i.e. use flash at shutter speeds over 1/200). This is useful where the scene is constantly changing (e.g. a wedding, etc.).

I primarily use studio monolights, but when I went on vacation to Australia and set up some photoshoots, I needed to use speedlites so my lighting system would fit in my luggage. I have 1 580 EX and 2 430 EXs. My lighting needs were to shoot a 3 light system in a studio type setting. I potentially wanted E-TTL for the high-speed sync for an outdoor shoot, but I prefer to control my strobes manually other-wise in a studio type setting. So, I went with the following:

For the E-TTL solution, I purchased a 25 foot E-TTL cord so I could trigger my 580 EX off-camera and use E-TTL (I have a Canon 5D Mark II which has no built in flash and cannot act as a commander). The 580 EX can act as a master for the 430 EXs so they can also fire via E-TTL. I looked into the radio-popper/pocket-wizard wireless E-TTL solutions, but both were expensive and also had technical limitations.

I also got radio poppers (non-E-TTL). Specifically, I purchased the JRX transmitter ($80) and 3 receivers ($100 each), plus 3 RP cubes ($30 each). What this set-up lets you do is manually control the power of your flashes via the transmitter rather than on the flashes or through the camera menu which saves a lot of time and lets you easily adjust your flashes power.



This is one of the photos I took using the radio poppers, which is a 2 light set-up. The main light was the 580 EX I used to shoot into the back of a thick glass plate the model was standing in front of. For a fill light to open up the shadows a little, I used a 430 EX w/an umbrella. Basically, I set my aperture, shutter speed, and ISO in manual mode to what I wanted (in this case, ISO 200, f/9, 1/160 sec), then adjusted my main light until I got it properly exposed (i.e. take a photo, turn the power up or down, take another photo, repeat), then did the same for the fill light. Because there was no line of sight to the flash behind the glass plate, the only way to have done this shot was using a wireless transmitter like the radio popper.

I cannot stress enough how much easier it makes life being able to control the power on your flashes by turning little knobs on the transmitter vs. having to do it on the flash itself or via the camera menu. Cheaper wireless transmitter systems will only trigger the flash but won't let you adjust the power.

[spcandrew]

Whoops, I changed the photo I was originally going to use as an example but forgot to change the EXIF data on it. It was shot at ISO 320, F/8.0, 1/160 sec.

[ccting]

Originally Posted by zona5101

consider Nissin 622 - it is ettl like the Canon and it's right at $200.
nissin di622

Off camera manual flash isn't hard but off camera ettl flash is butter.

In my country, Nissin i622 is only USD 114 now.. I wander if Nissin got manual flash..
In future, I will never consider speedlight, but strobes which is much cheaper and powerful..