>The 550EX will at best work as a fully manual flash on the Oly. It will NOT >as you put it "respond to just simple flash-for-this-long commands". It will >respond to a "flash now" command, and you could set the flash power manually >oin the flash before shooting. For real TTL automated flash on the Oly,
That's good enough ... for the times I need a bit of extra flash power on the digital. >you'll need the FL-40, and bracket and cables, etc. which will add several >hundred dollars to the cost of the camera kit. Not that it's a bad camera, >but I would say in this case the economics of the flash should outweigh your >concerns over a different kind of storage media. After all, 128Mb cards of >either type are only $40 nowadays. The flash isn't a major concern, its just a nice extra feature. >Having owned the 380EX, 420EX and now a pair of 550EX's, I'd say that you >could probably achieve the results you want with your present setup by >adding a diffuser to get wider coverage. IIRC, you're shooting an Elan II, EOS 300 (Rebel 2000) actually. >some of which have exhibited tendencies to underexpose, which you can >correct using the equipment you own now. The extra power of the 420EX is not >huge, the swivel feature useful if you're using it as a slave, and it's a >little smaller in size, but it's not a huge improvement over the 380EX. The Nah, I wouldn't bother with the 420EX. >550EX is much more powerful, has a very nice feature set, but it's also >quite a bit larger and although that might not be an issue on the Elan, it >will be very noticable on the smaller C4040/G2 or other small digicam. It >seems big even on my Pro90, which is among the larger digitals. OTOH, it >will work great in a wireless setup with the ST-E2 or another 550EX, and >with the built-in diffuser, wide coverage will not be an issue. But it just >seems like overkill for the situations you described. It could be overkill, yes. Just gathering peoples thoughts. A friend has also asked me to shoot his wedding (they're on a very tight budget, they understand the limitations of this, and he's a keen photographer too) and the 550EX would come in handy for that. I have access to his 540EZ but I'd miss high speed sync. The use with the digital is just for those times when I'd like a bit more flash power than the on-camera flash. I would expect < 5% of my flash shots to be with the 550EX ... just for the odd occasion when I want to shoot a group of friends and the inbuilt flash doesn't have enough grunt to do it. --- Dion Mikkelsen * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
