After selling my 35mm gear to go digital, I am considering returning. I previously had a Nikon N90, which with an SB-25 speedlight, produced the most natural looking flash exposures I have ever seen. Skin tones were perfect, not overexposed or underexposed. My previous Canon Elan (the original) was horrible with flash, usually vastly overexposing. I have heard that E-TTL is now as good as Nikon's system and also that it is not. Can someone give me the truth? Most of my shots are indoor shots of my family with an external speedlight. Flash quality will probably be the deciding factor in which system I buy. In all other areas, I believe Canon is now superior, but I must have flash accuracy.

-- Charles Sigmon (csigmonjr@netscape.net), January 27, 2002

Answers

I've had excellent results with my Elan 7E and 420EX Speedlite shooting chromes. Of course, any meter can be fooled, but with FEL and flash AE compensation you can handle any situation with ease. Here's a short review of the Elan 7E/420EX combo with example fill and bounce photos:

http:// alaike.lcc.hawaii.edu/frary/elan7e4.htm

-- Puppy Face (doggieface@aol.com), January 28, 2002.

E-TTL can't be as good as Nikon's 3D flash metering for direct flash shots because it has to make an assumption about the subject. Here's why.

Given a pre-flash of known intensity, and assuming direct flash through a medium that essentially transmits all light (air), the amount of light that comes back depends on the distance the light has travelled and on how much of the light the subject reflects. Nikon's system knows the distance and can therefore figure out whether the subject is mid-toned or not. Canon's system can't tell the difference between a lighter subject farther from the camera and a darker subject close to the camera, so it assumes that the subject should be mid-toned.

That advantage goes away in bounce flash, BTW, because there's no way of knowing how far the light has travelled or how much has been scattered, so Nikon drops the 3D part of its metering system if you bounce the flash. What's left works a lot like E-TTL.

Now that I've gone through the theory of operation, how well does E-TTL work in practice? Very well. I've been happy with the results of E-TTL with my old 380EX and Elan II and with my new 420EX and Elan 7e.

-- Steve Dunn (steved@ussinc.com), January 28, 2002.

In general, both systems are equal, as they both have their strengths. Canon has great bounce capabilities, while Nikons isn't so great, and Canons straight ahead mode has always been dead accurate for me. I have obviously had great results from Nikon when not doing bounce. I personally find the Canon E-TTL system to be a better, more well rounded system than Nikons, because rarely do I shoot everything in the straight ahead position.

-- Carl Smith (emorphien@mail.rit.edu), January 28, 2002.

They are both good flash systems, and I agree with Steve that at least in theory, Nikon holds the lead in straight on flash. Doing a simple bounce they seem to be about equal. In practice I don't have problems either way.

Where Canon starts to shine is when you want to do something else with flash. Since the Canon flash system uses the pre-flash to determine metering, it will allow you to use Flash Exposure Lock (FEL), and it will still meter while using high speed sync. Nikon falls to manual calculations with high speed sync.

Also Canon's multi flash wireless mode is much more versatile with ratio controls and it can't be tripped by other people's point & shoots going off. Nikon relies on the SU-4, an external TTL slave device that fires your slave every time somebody shoots.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), January 28, 2002.

i reckon u wld like to check out this site abt eos flash system... pretty comprehensive....to me at least : ) http://teladesign.com/photo/eos-flash/

-- rendra (seraphim_75@yahoo.com), January 29, 2002.