My Speedlight 600EX-RT LINK Lid is always Red when in Slave mode

[ramirizk]

Hi everyone, I hope someone can help me here,

I got my Flash & Canon T5i recently, both works great when flash is mounted on Camera, but when Iam using the flash in slave mood with the Camera the Link Lid goes to red indicating No connection between both & not coming to green at all, here is my settings:

Camera T5i:

Flash firing Enabled

E-TTL II meter to Evaluating

Built in flash set to Cust wireless

Wirless Func set to both flash to fire (on camera & external)

Firing group set to ALL

using Channel 4 for communication with flash

Flash 600EX-RT:

Slave in Radio wireless mode

ETTL

Channel 4

Group A

How can I get both to work through the wireless radio signal, Please help thanks,

[TCampbell · Accepted solution]

The 600EX-RT can operate wirelessly either via radio -or- via optical triggering.

The native capability of the T5i _only_ allows is to trigger an external flash via optical... not radio.  To do radio you'd have to add either the ST-E3-RT on-camera trigger... or put another 600EX-RT flash on camera to act as the radio master.

You can, however, switch the 600EX-RT into "optical" slave mode.  To do that, keep pressing the link button until the screen backlight is yellow (not green) and the symbol in the upper right corner shows the lightning (not the radio antenna).  The link light will switch off in optical mode (since there is no radio activity).  Also the red LED focus-assist beam will pulse/flash on the front of the flash to tell you it's active (you can disable that if it's distracting.)

Note that optical requires line of sight.  The pick-up on the 600 is hiding behind the red lens on the lower half of the 600EX-RT.  You may need to rotate the lower half of the 600EX-RT to face the camera flash so that it can "see" the on-camera flash fire; the flash head swivels so you can still point it where you need it -- independent of which way the lower-half is facing.

Note that (and this is confusing) even if you "disable" the on-camera flash because you don't want it's light in your images... you will STILL see it fire.  But it fires the flash instructions to the remote while the shutter is still closed.  The shutter will then open and only the off-camera flash will fire (if you've disabled the on-camera flash).  This all happens so fast that you'd think both flashes were used for the shot.  Closer inspection of the image will reveal that the on-camera light was not present in the shot when the shutter was open.  

[ramirizk]

Thanks TCampbell, that was indeed true... & helpful although disapointed that I missed the "Real" Wireless comunication (i.e Radio) but at least there is a way out...

[TCampbell]

Off camera lighting is one of THE best ways to improve images. One off-camera light is a great start... but as time goes by, you may want 2... or depending on how ambitious you take your photography hobby... even more lights.

So the good news is that you do own the flagship Canon flash (and possibly the best speedlite in the industry). So if you end up getting into speedlites, it's nice to be able to hide them behind a subject for backlighting, put them inside a softbox for soft lighhting, hide them behind outdoor objects to light up a background independent of your foreground, etc. and having a flash with "radio" means you don't need line-of-sight... you can put them anywhere inside radio range (which offers you tremendous flexibility).

While you'll be starting with the optical trigger, the system offers a lot of growth and you'll be using that 600EX-RT for years to come.

Syl Arena's book "The Speedliter's Handbook" is a great book to help with the speedlite system but doesn't cover the new radio technology (when he published it, the 580EX II was the flagship flash) ...but there are some great Canon "Explorer's of LIght" YouTube videos on Canon's new 600EX-RT system that really show off what you can do with it.