Will 420EX fire studio slaves?

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes, protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Seems right, here are some additional things.

1. I think you could use the in-camera flash to trigger slave, tape on a litle aluminum foil deflector to keep the light off the subject, should trigger your slave if it's sensitive enough. I think using the camera in manual mode (which you would do with studio strobes anyway) will disable the pre-flash which fools slaves (check to see if I'm right).

2. The problem with either in-camera of EX420 is that you're limited by the flash recycle time which is undoubtedly longer than the studio strobe's (probably not much of a factor because of the time it takes to write the image to the CF card)

3. I have the Wein adaptor and it works perfectly with my gear (Sunpak monolights)

Good luck,

Alan

Chuck Hale said:

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the
same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes,
protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

Chuck Hale said:

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the
same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes,
protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

You're missing the 420EX pre-flash.

Pre-flash is an E-TTL function that happens with both internal G2 flash and E-TTL external flashes, such as the 420EX.

To disable pre-flash, either use a non-ETTL external flash, go to manual mode, or set flash exposure with the " " button.

Who is Will 420EX, and why does he want to fire the slaves? What did the slaves ever do to him? I think we should keep the slaves at least for getting tea and cookies at the studio. LOL couldn't resist the play on words.

Tbone,

How are we ever going to get our work done here if you insist on cracking jokes!! ()

I visited B&H photo in NYC today. I can't imagine any photo store any larger, in the whole world. Maybe Helix in Chicago. Haven't been there for awhile. But B&H is incredible. I don't know how many hundreds of employees they have, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 300.

Thanks for the news about the 420EX pre-firing. I didn't understand that.

While at B&H I got the Wein shoe to protect my G-2 from my old Vivitar 283's. I'll probably go ahead and get the 420EX by mail. Cheaper to pay the shipping than NYC sales tax.

Tbone said:

Who is Will 420EX, and why does he want to fire the slaves? What
did the slaves ever do to him? I think we should keep the slaves at
least for getting tea and cookies at the studio. LOL couldn't
resist the play on words.

Click to expand...

Chuck, I don't think the 420EX will properly trigger your studio strobes. The 420 sends out a pre flash to measure the exposure and I think this will trigger your studio lights? I hope that I am incorrect.
Jim

Chuck Hale said:

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the
same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes,
protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

For what is worth, I 've run some tests using my Nikon speedlight SB28 and it works great. Using it with the camera on M, I can set the flash to A and it not only triggers my slaves but also calculates the right amount of fill light. It has a built in cell that evaluates the exposure on the fly and emits only the right amount of light. I can also set it to M when I don't want any interference from it, set it to up to 1/64th of the power and turn the head to the other side of the subject. Doing like that, recycling times are almost instantaneous. The unit is a tad expensive but I've already had it as part of my SLR film equipment.

I've had no luck with in-camera flash triggering slaves due to the pre-flash and I don't like the idea of pressing the * button everytime before taking a shot.
Herbet.

Jim Fels said:

Chuck Hale said:

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the
same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes,
protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Are you suggesting that the SB28 would be a better choice for my G-2 than the Canon 420EX?

It sounds as if the SB28 is measuring its own light - as quite a few flash units do - not sending information back to the camera. Am I correct?

I've heard that the NikonSB28 is a really great unit. But if what I have surmised is correct - i.e., that it's measuring the light and controlling itself but not the camera - aren't there some other very fine units that do the same thing? Metz, etc.

herbet said:

I've had no luck with in-camera flash triggering slaves due to the
pre-flash and I don't like the idea of pressing the * button
everytime before taking a shot.
Herbet.

Jim Fels said:

Chuck Hale said:

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the
same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes,
protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Right, if you use it in A mode, you just key in ISO, and Aperture information on the SB28 and it will do in its own regardless of the camera settings.

I'm not saying SB28 is better than Canon's though. I already have it and don't want to invest in a Canon dedicated flash now. Moreover, for out of studio situations when you don't have time to set the camera and flash separately, an unit that can talk to the camera would be much more valuable. There certainly are other units that do what the SB28 does. There might even be one from Canon with the same capabilities. But if all you want is to trigger the slaves then any unit within the safe voltage and with manual settings would do. Just make sure the Canon flash you buy can have the E-TTL with flash pre-fire overriden.

Let us know how it works out for you.
Herbet.

Chuck Hale said:

It sounds as if the SB28 is measuring its own light - as quite a
few flash units do - not sending information back to the camera.
Am I correct?
I've heard that the NikonSB28 is a really great unit. But if what
I have surmised is correct - i.e., that it's measuring the light
and controlling itself but not the camera - aren't there some other
very fine units that do the same thing? Metz, etc.

herbet said:

I've had no luck with in-camera flash triggering slaves due to the
pre-flash and I don't like the idea of pressing the * button
everytime before taking a shot.
Herbet.

Jim Fels said:

Chuck Hale said:

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the
same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes,
protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

If you want to fire studio slaves you have to get rid of the E-TTL preflash.

On the 550 ex there is a custom function to do this (disable preflash) but then this will also disable any TTL metering and I don't believe the 550ex has an autoexposure sensor to do A priority auto flash.

If you want to keep with the Canon's. I would suggest you buy another 420ex and an ST-E3(?) wireless remote controller. This way you can have two off camera wireless flash (or heck buy 3 or 4?) that will be controlled by E-TTL. Very flexible. Not as powerfull as your studio strobes.

Or buy a 550ex or two and an ST-E3 for more power. The 420ex, 550ex, and ST-E2's all work great together to give very flexible wireless, E-TTL, and even high speed sync wireless.

But yes if you just want to trigger your studio strobes you might be better off with an SB-28, SB-24, or some other flash that has a sensor for non-TTL aperture priority autoflash.

Another way to disable the 420ex preflash is to insert a Canon hotshoe adapterII between the camera's hot shoe and the flash. On film cameras, the makes the camera/flash combination perform regular TTL flash, but that won't work on the digital camera so more than likely, the 420ex will fire at full power, since their are no manual power adjustments. Like somone else mentioned, you would have to turn the flash around or put somekind of neutral density filter over the flash head to tone it down to just enough to fire the slaves

Or... buy an ultra cheapo auto aperture flash and buy some Ikelite wireless TTL slaves and a few cheap but powerful flashes for those units.

Have fun experimenting... at least with digital you don't have to wait till the films processed to see if your lighting worked... instant feed back!! Better than a Poloroid!!

herbet said:

I'm not saying SB28 is better than Canon's though. I already have
it and don't want to invest in a Canon dedicated flash now.
Moreover, for out of studio situations when you don't have time to
set the camera and flash separately, an unit that can talk to the
camera would be much more valuable. There certainly are other units
that do what the SB28 does. There might even be one from Canon with
the same capabilities. But if all you want is to trigger the slaves
then any unit within the safe voltage and with manual settings
would do. Just make sure the Canon flash you buy can have the E-TTL
with flash pre-fire overriden.

Let us know how it works out for you.
Herbet.

Chuck Hale said:

It sounds as if the SB28 is measuring its own light - as quite a
few flash units do - not sending information back to the camera.
Am I correct?
I've heard that the NikonSB28 is a really great unit. But if what
I have surmised is correct - i.e., that it's measuring the light
and controlling itself but not the camera - aren't there some other
very fine units that do the same thing? Metz, etc.

herbet said:

I've had no luck with in-camera flash triggering slaves due to the
pre-flash and I don't like the idea of pressing the * button
everytime before taking a shot.
Herbet.

Jim Fels said:

Chuck Hale said:

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the
same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes,
protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Turn the G2's flash off and change your 420 to TTL via the custom function (3, I think).

That'll worik but the problem with that approach is you've got light from the 420 that you've gotta make sure doesn't affect your real lighting.

I have the PocketWizard Plus kit that I use with my EOS 3 and I hope** it'll work okay in the G2's hot shoe. I assume it will since it works fine now. I plan to order the G2 toinight and will primarily be using it with monolights.

Paul

Chuck Hale said:

Check my understandings:

a. The 420EX on the camera hot shoe will disable the G-2 pre-flash

b. Then the 420EX will successfully trigger studio slaves.

c. The wein camera hot shoe insert will essentially function the
same way and will work with a variety of other brands of flashes,
protecting the G-2 from high voltage damage.

Am I missing something here?

Click to expand...