Canon's 540EZ on a Hot Shoe Slave?

[roncgizmo]

Anyone know if this will work?

I was thinking about mounting this flash with a umbrella
with a basic slave mount and triggering it with the pop up.

[Mr_Bester]

It more depends on your optical slave. I have triggered my 540EZs with optical and radio triggers. The problem with my optical trigger is it was homemade and needed quite a burst of light to trigger it. Commercial optical slave would be better, unless you are outside.
Dug

Edit: you'd also need to make sure the optical slave wasn't being blocked by the umbrella.

[JohnC]

Triggering with the pop-up will be tricky if using an optical slave. The pop-up flash is always in eTTL mode, so it fires a pre-flash. You will need a slave that is aware of the pre-flash and can be set to ignore it.

[roncgizmo]

Thanks, I just bought a cheap ebay slave to try it before I send 35 or more for a good one.

John, I thought if I turn off the red eye I can get but that. am I wrong?

The last time I really did any kind of creative work I was using film and a A-1 then I bought a elan 7 but it turned into a point and shoot for me.lol

[Max@Home]

Originally Posted by roncgizmo

John, I thought if I turn off the red eye I can get but that. am I wrong?

Alas, yes, you are: the Canon ETTL system works with a very short pre-flash, with which the camera/flashsystem determines how much light to shed/when to turn the power off, immediately followed by the main burst.

A non-suited optical slave will pick up the pre-flash, and thus unleash it's power too soon...

If you do this in a studio setting, you might be able to first cock off the preflash by pressing the * button, and then wait for the 540ez to regain posture and reload, and then take the actual shot ??...

...€0.02...

Kindest regards!

Max@Home

[00silvergt]

You can get around the pre-flash by hitting the *, wait for the strobe to regenerate and click. That will then trigger it when you want it to go off. That's what I do with the Quantaray Booster slave flashes.

[JohnC]

Originally Posted by 00silvergt

You can get around the pre-flash by hitting the *, wait for the strobe to regenerate and click. That will then trigger it when you want it to go off. That's what I do with the Quantaray Booster slave flashes.

I've never tried that. Does that work well with portraits? I would think that having the flash fire twice with a few seconds between would dampen spontaneity or cause other issues with the subject looking away, blinking, etc.

But it should work for still lifes.

[00silvergt]

Originally Posted by JohnC

I've never tried that. Does that work well with portraits? I would think that having the flash fire twice with a few seconds between would dampen spontaneity or cause other issues with the subject looking away, blinking, etc.

But it should work for still lifes.

I use it just that, I don't know to what extent would the portraits would be affected. I wonder if you turn off ETTL and go to manual mode, if it will still fire a pre-flash, I'm guessing not...

[JohnC]

There is no Manual mode for the built-in flash, only eTTL (and preflash).

[MichaelBass]

The pop-up flash always gives the preflash, so the alternative is to place a small cheap manual flash in the hot shoe which will fire just on the X-sync, and then trigger the standard optical slave units in correct sync.

[00silvergt]

Originally Posted by JohnC

There is no Manual mode for the built-in flash, only eTTL (and preflash).

Originally Posted by MichaelBass

The pop-up flash always gives the preflash, so the alternative is to place a small cheap manual flash in the hot shoe which will fire just on the X-sync, and then trigger the standard optical slave units in correct sync.

Oh, you were referring to the pop-up...I thought you had a 580 or 550 and want to trigger the 540 LOL (Oh, that's me!) I have the 540EZ that has a manual setting.

[roncgizmo]

I just got the slave today and started playing around with a few settings..

Here's what I came up with so far: I'm using a D70 to trigger the Optical slave. first I just put in on and took a few shots and I had the popup covered with the 540 so it had no effect on the outcome. The photos came out very dark (as expected after what you guys already told me) Then I took another look at the flash itself and it has 2 buttons that have a + - on it and under it reads SYNC so I backed it down to 1/8 and I think I got lucky the first adjustment.. I ran off a few more test shots and it's now in SYNC my plan is to use this on a umbrella or a soft box. The head on the 540 with turn 360 so it might be easier then I think to set that up too.