i'm faily new to photography and want to learn how use two strobes, one on-camera and one off. are the 430ez and 550ex compatible? if not, how can i get the two speedlites to "talk" to each other? thanks.

-- gloria wright (gwright@aiusa.com), November 10, 2001

Answers

Gloria,

Some of the older Canon speedlights, EZ models in particular, do not have E-TTL technology and cannot wirelessly talk to each other. You can also go fully manual with light sensitive triggers on your flashes or you can go with a wired TTL system as well (EZ flashes would work for this). Do you specifically want the wireless setup? If so, you would need to stick to 550EX's and 420EX's. You will need at least one 550EX or ST-E2 to act as a master unit and then you can use 420EX's as slaves. We need to think of a better way to describe this relationship. Master and Slave is just too Hegelian for me...

-- Roger Shrader (rashrader@hotmail.com), November 10, 2001.

"Hegelian" - I have to admit that's a new one on me, but I think I get the drift.

Roger's right, they won't work together this way since the EZ series Speedlites don't have any wireless capability built in. The only Canon Speedlites that do are the 550EX, 420EX and that fancy new ring flash that I never remember the designation of.

You do have a couple of options though. You can get an Ikelite Lite- Link TTL metering wireless slave attachment ($80 at Adorama.com), mount it under the 550EX and have the 430EZ act as the trigger. TTL metering is still employed & this works quite well. You can use the 550EX as the trigger if you disable E-TTL via its custom function.

Or you can get Canon's modular TTL wire setup which will set you back over $200 for all the parts for two flashes. The Lite-Link is faster, easier and cheaper.

Or you can go completely manual since both the 550EX and the 430EZ have full manual controls. The problem is getting the remote flash to work with a generic optical slave. For some reason Canon Speedlites don't like to be mounted on regular slaves & often don't work this way.

The other method is to sell the 430EZ on Ebay and buy a Sigma EF500 Super to go wireless with the 550EX. Or if you sold both Speedlites you'd almost have enough to buy 3 of the Sigmas.

Anyway, there are options for making this work.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), November 10, 2001.

Not all Canon Speedlites are created equal.

My old 430EZ behaves with a simple optically-triggered flash trigger. The newer 550EX will trigger once, then becomes "blocked", needing to be turned off then on before it will fire another shot.

Cheers

-- Julian Loke (elan7e-owner@yahoogroups.com), November 10, 2001.

Thanks for the help. And it's not often you hear a reference to GWL Hegel in casual conversation:-) I think I'll try the Lite-Link option. By the way, I sent the same question to Canon's tech people through their web site about a week ago. Am still waiting for an answer...

-- gloria wright (gwright@aiusa.com), November 13, 2001.