EOS R5 Mark II - Second Curtain on non-canon studio flash system

[missamyb]

Hi, 

I jumped ship on Nikon and changed system to the R5 M2. There's a lot of relearning going on and I am super frustrated that I cannot seem to access any settings that allow me to set rear or second curtain sync for my studio lights set up. Any help ... I have been searching the webs and not found anything. thanks

[chrishoesel · Accepted solution]

I should have clarified:

Set the EL-5 to manual, stand-alone flash mode. (Not master/slave, or whatever the new PC nomenclature is)

Set the studio strobes to fire optically (this is quite normal when mixing strobe brands)

But in manual mode there would be no E-TTL pre-flash.  The other studio strobes don't care whether the triggering strobe is an E-TTL pulse or a flash strobe.  They will fire instantly when set to trigger from ANY flash going off.

Granted, all flash settings will need to be manual, and not TTL, however anyone doing rear-curtain sync will need it for very specific purposes which are generally quite advanced, and will know how to set exposure manually.

I have not tried it, so I'm just going by what would logically work in my mind.

[deebatman316]

It may or may not work also the shutter speed has to be very slow. Since Canon only allows rear curtain sync at 1/30th sec or slower.

[missamyb]

Thanks for this message. This is my work around. Except I bought a godox trigger and flash forward thinking to a shift in slowly swapping out the other brands. I am surprised that the responses from the Illuminati in the room were largely giving the impression it wasn't possible or may not work. I much prefer to lean into creative thinking and innovation. 

[jkphotos]

Thank you for sharing this!

I use a Canon R5 ii and a Godox v100 flash and just confirmed that I was able to use second curtain sync despite using a third-party speedlite. It was just as you described. In manual shooting mode, I went to the flash function settings menu and was able to set it to 1st curtain, 2nd curtain, or high-speed sync.

[deebatman316]

@jkphotos The only reason it worked is because it talks to the camera for E-TTL. If it was a manual single pin flash it would NOT be possible at all. Note Canon only allows rear curtain sync at 1/25th sec or slower. Since it’s handled on the speedlite end and not the camera body end. Unlike other camera manufacturers.