Canon 600ex ii-rt speedlite

[gpal813]

Hello,

I'm a newbie so go easy on me!!!  LOL

I'm thinking of starting my own business in Product Photography and I know I will need several speedlites. If I buy a 

600ex ii-rt  unit as the master do  I have to buy the same units for the slaves. 

I would be interested in using TTL and manual.

Thanks

Gil

[kvbarkley]

No, you just need to decide which transmission protocol you want to use, optical or RF and buy slaves accordingly. My 430EX works just fine as an optical slave.

[TCampbell]

The 430EX III-RT also supports radio.

The "optical" modes require line-of-sight ... so if a speedlite flash were to be installed inside a soft-box then it wouldn't "see" the master flash fire ... which is a huge advantage of radio systems.  Sometimes you hide a flash directly behind an object to provide back-light and that's another scenario where the slave might not "see" the master fire.

But I probably would not use an on-camera flash as a transmitter because you'll probably usually want all the flash units to be located off-camera (why waste a flash just to be the transmitter).  You might consider picking up the Canon ST-E3-RT transmitter (which works with Canon's radio flash units such as the 600EX-RT, 600EX II-RT, and 430EX III-RT).

[gpal813]

Thank you for your reply.

I have  a lot to learn in the next couple of months. Expect many more questions!

[kvbarkley]

You should really get "The Speediliters Handbook" by Syl Arena. Really.

[TCampbell]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

You should really get "The Speediliters Handbook" by Syl Arena. Really.

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Syl’s book really is very good and it de-mystifies a lot about how the Canon E-TTL system works.   I highly recommend it as well.

[inkjunkie]

ouch....that is a pricey book....

[inkjunkie]

Is the older version worth looking for??

[TCampbell · Accepted solution]

Wow!  At first I thought you were being cheap.  Then I went to Amazon to check the price... $200 for a new copy!   That's crazy.  I'm not sure why the price has skyrocketed for it.  I can only speculate that it's gone out of print (though it is a very popular book so you'd think they'd just do another printing).  Unofrtunately Syl Arena (the author) did have a stroke a couple of years ago so possibly this has something to do with it.  Syl is a Canon "Explorer of Light", and in addition to his books, he did a lot of videos, workshops, blogging, and was very active and well-known (and well-liked).  I don't know his current health situation and I certainly hope he is doing well.  But I suspect the stroke likely means there is probably not going to be a 3rd edition.  I can only guess that this has something to do with the current price tag for one of the last remaining "new" copies.)

Looking for it on an e-book platform...  I see it's $43.99 on Apple's "iBooks" store.

I do not see it on the Kindle platform.

Maybe it's time to get books in electronic form.

Side story:

I (like everyone else) bought books in physical form.  One day a plumbing disaster (pipe burst) took out most of the books on my bookshelf and I decided that maybe I should just start doing e-books... everything on one tablet-sized device, easy to read, easy to search, and your entire library can be wherever you are when you travel.

I initially thought I'd just do the Amazon Kindle ... it was the "800lb Gorilla" of the e-book world.  But being into photography... I ran into a problem.  Kindle was traditionally just black & white "e-ink".  No support for color.  It turns out their spec actually does support color (and they eventually came out with the Kindle Fire which supports color) but since the platform lacked color for so many years, most books that have pictures are basically something that looks like an ink-drawing.   This is terrible for books on photography.   Since Amazon makes a Kindle "app" available (even if you don't buy a Kindle device) I tested a few books and found some that actually supported color ... but it was low resolution and not much of a color palette so books on photography still looked awful.  I needed something else.

Barnes & Noble had the "Nook" but Barnes & Noble was also going out of business... I don't want to invest in something that will be gone within 5 years (I may as well have another plumbing disaster wipe out another bookshelf.)

So... since I have an iPad, I looked into the Apple "iBooks" platform.  iBooks is very rich high-resolution color, books on photography look great.  As a bonus, it's a lot easier to highlight sections, take notes, etc. on the iBooks platform.  Also, the odds of Apple going out of business anytime soon is unlikely.  So I decided to go with that.  

The only "catch" to iBooks is that it does require that you own some type of Apple device... it can be their phone, their iPad, or a Mac.   If you happen to already own any of those then just download the iBooks app (it's free - you only pay for the books, not the reader) and you're good to go.

This worked out well for me because I already had an iPad and had been using it for years before I came to the realization that I already owned the perfect bookreader.

The book "Light Science & Magic" is another heavily recommended book on lighting... but it's a general book on lighting (not specific to speedlite flashes nor the Canon system).  

[gpal813]

Umm guys.... I checked Amazon last night  and the book is listed for the price of $15.94 to rent but I can get a good copy for $7.12 + shipping.

OK I just checked and that's for the 1st edition and the second edition is $197.77 new and $125.88 used. Now that is a purchase I will have to think about. Maybe the library!!!! and some good note taking.....lol

Not available in Kindle edition.