M6 Mark II and Speedlite

[nbender182]

Can I control an off-camera Speedlite, 430EX III-RT,  with the pop-up flash on my Canon M6 Mark II, or do I need a controller?

I'm new and confused by the manual, and haven't been able to find a good answer.  I want to be able to use an off-camera flash with my M6.

Thanks.

[Waddizzle]

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@nbender182 wrote:

Can I control an off-camera Speedlite, 430EX III-RT,  with the pop-up flash on my Canon M6 Mark II, or do I need a controller?

I'm new and confused by the manual, and haven't been able to find a good answer.  I want to be able to use an off-camera flash with my M6.

Thanks.

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What do the specs or user manual say about it?  Technically, you should be able to go into the Flash menus and answer your own question.  If there is no option in the menu to set the camera as a master, then that is your answer.

[MikeSowsun]

The M6 Mk II has no built-in optical wireless master flash capability.  You can use an ST-E2 or ST-E3-RT to trigger your 430EX III-RT.

Yes, the M6 Mk II menu supports wireless or optical control of external flash, but not using just the built-in flash You must use some kind of a Canon compatible master in the hotshoe. 

The User Manual is rather ambiguous about this subject, and page 298 only refers to using an external flash: 

[rs-eos]

The 430EX III RT can indeed be used as either a wireless or optical slave (e.g. see page 71 of that Speedlite's manual). 

The EOS M6 II appears to support both wireless or optical control of external flash (Canon EX) units.   See page 298 of its manual.

[nbender182]

Okay, thanks guys. It does seem like I'll need a master controller. A downside with this camera is then, no viewfinder and external flash at the same time.

[MikeSowsun]

If you are not afraid to experiment with manual  flash, there are some 3rd party flash units that act as a simple optical slave flash to any bright flash they see. 

They can be set up to ignore the ETTL pre-flash of your M6 II, or you could set your M6 II to manual flash to trigger the simple optical slave flash. With the built-in flash power set very low, it should not be very noticeable in the photo, but still tigger the slave flash.

The Godox TT350s is an example of a quality, small flash that could be used this way.