EOS Flashes

Canon EOS Flashes

The Secrets of Straight On Flash

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 30. January 2012 - 6:10

One of the most popular photography website is the http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/ from David Hobby. I'm not in the same league and I don't even pretend. But I use flashes regularly. I specialize in simple setups. The problem with most of the photos sites where they give you the lighting diagram, they tell you how they did it but not why they chose this or that solution.

Jasper is not a happy camper. Jasper clearly doesn't want to be here. If he could escape and go back home he would. Treats and weird/special noises didn't help to get his interest.

Jasper clearly doesn't want to be here. If he could escape to go back home he would. Treats and weird, special noises didn't help to get his interest.charlie-20120126-2457.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Jasper is not a happy camper   click on image for gallery

First look at eyes, no “evil” glowing eyes, good definition and not hard shadows. Here's the technical data:

Flash: The Dreaded Green Eyes

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 2. December 2011 - 6:25

For people, it's red and for almost all animals it's green. By now, the vast majority of the processing software can fix the red eyes with just a click of the mouse. But for cats, dogs and the other animals, they get the green eyes with the flash in their face. Most software cannot process it. Here's my way of almost removing the green eyes in Lightroom, but it's not perfect, Lightroom: How To Remove The Green Eyes in Animals

Buzz The Cat

If you look at the EXIF data from this photograph, you will see:

Flash & Lens Coverage

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 4. November 2011 - 5:59

The Canon 580 and 430 series flashes have a zoom head. Both flashes have the coverage of lenses from 24mm to 105mm. The flash talks to the camera and ask for the lens setting and will adjust accordingly, through the fancy of the electronics … Canon calls it the E-TTL II.

What about for a Canon 7D, the T3i, the 1DMk4, the… the crop/APS-C or APS-H sensor cameras? The flash knows the camera and the flash understands the lens/sensor settings. The flash will adjust the flash coverage automatically, only if you are in the E-TTL mode.

Canon 580EX II Flash Failures

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 18. February 2011 - 6:26

Canon Rumors, you follow them right? has published a blog post: 580EX II Faulty by Design. Pocket Wizard is having many problems with the Canon 7D and the 580EXII. So they commissioned an “independent” study that found faults with the 580EXII flash design, especially when using the High Speed Synchronization.

Their conclusions are:

Some of the Secrets from the Flash World

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 17. February 2011 - 6:35

As I've mentioned in another blog post, I've been reading “Speedliter's Handbook” from Syl Arena. Reading is nothing, the most important part is actually trying and experimenting. Here are my discoveries from some of these experiments.

Secret #1 of when using the flash

The shutter speed controls the ambient light when using the flash. The Canon 7D has a sync speed of up to 1/250th of a second with the flash. At short range, the flash is the main source of light.

EOS Flashes: Speedliter's Handbook

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 11. February 2011 - 6:57

I buy many photography related books, usually 20+ per year. I rarely do book reviews. Why? Because I only review books, that out of 5 stars, I would rate more than 5 stars. I don't review and pan items, unless I'm really “pissed off” because I've been deceived.

The last book I reviewed, and strongly recommend, was: “Successful Self-Promotion for Photographers” from Elyse Weissberg in How Often Should You Promote? and in Getting The Appointment.

External Flash Meter

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 2. December 2010 - 6:42

Last night after dinner, Anon from Ymous fame, knocked on my door to ask for help. He's the “senior photographer” at his photo club, so he can't ask for help there. His wife bought him an external flash meter for his birthday. I haven't used one of these, a Gossen, from the late 70s, that's the late 1970s.

Anon tried the Sekonic flash meter with his Nikon D700 and his SB800. It was giving readings that were at least 5 f/stops under exposed. But the Sekonic was giving the correct reading when he tried it with his small point-and-shoot camera.

Number Of Flashes 580EXII Before Thermal Shutdown

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 26. October 2010 - 9:26

Canon's manual for the 580EXII flash says:

Cautions for firing continuous flashes

  • To avoid overheating and degrading the flash head, do not fire more than 20 continuous flashes. After 20 continuous flashes, allow a rest time of at least 10 min.

  • If you fire more than 20 continuous flashes and then fire more flashes in short intervals, the inner overheating prevention function may be activated to make the recycling time about 8 to 20 sec. If this occurs, allow a rest time of about 15 min.

Flash: Factors In Controlling Exposure

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 22. September 2010 - 7:46

A lot of people of people are afraid of flash. Flash is much more complicated and much more difficult to control because there are more parameters. Plus note of how many bad flash photos: the deer in the headlight look in a cavern.

EOS Flash: Metering Modes

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 22. September 2010 - 5:41

The exposure mode determine the relationship between the flash and the camera. There are 4 different exposure modes when dealing with EOS Flashes:

  1. Aperture priority: Av
  2. Manual: M
  3. Program: P

Canon 7D: Auto-ISO Flash Setting

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 21. September 2010 - 16:43

If you have your Canon 7D set to Auto-ISO and you slip your flash on, whether it's a Canon flash or a third party flash, like Metz... What are the rules for the Auto-ISO? That will depend on the mode:

  1. Tv or Av or P or CA or Full Auto: The ISO speed will be set at ISO 400
  2. Av Fill-in Flash: If the pre-flash detects over-exposure at ISO 400, then the ISO will drop to as low as ISO 100.
  3. P or CA or Full Auto & bounce flash: The ISO speed will be set between ISO 400 to ISO 1600 depending on the pre-flash.

Flash: Guide Numbers

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 6. May 2010 - 23:00

Not only Canon flashes, but all brands express the power power of their flashes with the Guide Number. Canon numbers their flashes with the guide number. The guide number is the distance at a specific ISO at a specific zoom head position.

Why is the Guide Number so important?

  1. It allows us to calculate the right exposure. Without the right guide number, no correct exposure. It's that simple.
  2. It allows us to compare different flashes.

Canon: Remote Wireless Flash

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 11. January 2010 - 0:00

For the first time, Canon has finally introduced a camera that can operate other eTTL flashes wirelessly without having a separate master flash mounted on the camera. The small built-in flash can be used as a “controller”. The pop-up flash will control either the 4xx, the 5xx series or many other compatible flashes like the Metz flashes.

All the flashes must be within a clear line of sight. The pop-up flash will do a “pre-flash”, a visible flash with the proper commands to the other flashes.

Non Canon Flash Not Working

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 8. January 2010 - 0:00

I have this old, very old flash. It used to be the standard, the work horse of all professional photographers in the 70s. Yes, that's the 1970s. Every professional photographer had a Vivitar 283 flash. That was before the Canon EOS Speedlights or the Nikon Creative Lighting System.

I got a few photos in the manual mode, it worked. But when I switched to the Live View mode, it stopped working. The flash didn't fire at the right time. What happened?

I thought that my Vivitar 283 had packed it in. Tried again it in the regular manual mode and it worked again. So it was something I did.

Canon: Flash Exposure Compensation

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 6. January 2010 - 0:00

I wish Canon had a flash system as good as Nikon's. I'm not saying that it's bad, underpowered, I'm saying is not as sophisticated or as flexible as Nikon's. When dealing with flash, you must deal with exposure compensation. Exposure compensation is topic that you have to feel, there are no hard rules.

  • The exposure compensation does NOT work in manual mode.
  • The flash exposure compensation does NOT work in manual mode.

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div class="boxtip" markdown="1"> Canon splits the exposure compensation between the camera and the flash.

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