Slave flash.

[John M]

Advice please,

I have recently bought a Canon 580EX speedlite to use on a Canon 20D, and it is a great bit of kit. I now would like to get another flashgun to act as a fill in flash/slave to the 580. Should I get another 580EX or will a lower spec one be better?
Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks,
John.

[Mick Johnson]

Advice please,

I have recently bought a Canon 580EX speedlite to use on a Canon 20D, and it is a great bit of kit. I now would like to get another flashgun to act as a fill in flash/slave to the 580. Should I get another 580EX or will a lower spec one be better?
Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks,
John.

Hi John,

You can use the 580, 550, 420, 430 as a slave.

The 420 and 430 will only work as a slave and not master as the 580, 550 will.

None of the guns will be better than the others when used as slave unless you need the extra power of the 550, 580 which is very unlikely.

You don't say what you are actually doing with the flash. Are you trying to freeze the bird or what?

[John M]

Hi Mick,
Thanks for the response. Most of the time I will just need fill in flash, but I would like to be able to freeze the action, when needed. With the 580EX this is easy, but will the other flashguns be able to do this fast sync, when being used as a slave? I feel that it is better to spend the extra now, and get the right tool for the job.
Flash photography is a something I would like to experiment with, especially at this time of year, with light so poor a lot of the time.
Cheers,
John

[Mick Johnson]

Hi Mick,
Thanks for the response. Most of the time I will just need fill in flash, but I would like to be able to freeze the action, when needed. With the 580EX this is easy, but will the other flashguns be able to do this fast sync, when being used as a slave? I feel that it is better to spend the extra now, and get the right tool for the job.
Flash photography is a something I would like to experiment with, especially at this time of year, with light so poor a lot of the time.
Cheers,
John

To completley freeze a bird in flight any of the guns will do.

You don;t however do it with 'high speed sync' if that's what you meant by fast sync. High speed sync will not freeze anything as it only sync's with the camera's shutter speed, any shutter speed. It is actually a small pulse and has a very limited range.

To freeze a small bird you need to use flash sync which is totally different.

This type of photography is one of my favourite's and I use 2 or 3 550's and a STE-2. It's also no good putting one of the guns on the camera so you really need an STE-2 and another gun, one either side of the bird.

As the guns need to be about 2ft from the bird you obviuosly don't need powerful guns so like I said any of the ones you mention will do it, easily.

I have sometimes put my guns on manual and normally 1/8 or 1/16 power is all you need depending on the light.

Personally if I already had a 580 I would probabaly get a used 550 (£150-ish) as it will do everything a 580 will. The 430 would be my next choice. The 420 I would'nt have because it's auto only but it would still work perfectly as a slave for this sort of photography.

BTW, you can only do this in dull conditions. If you try it in sunny weather you get all sorts of weird double images from the ambient light after the flash has fired.