will speedlite 600 ex-rt work off 5d Mark 111 without transmitter

[Rkc51246]

Received conflicting info.  can I buy one speedlight 600ex-rt and have it work (flash) with it not being in the shoe of my 5D MIII and without a radio transmitter?  example would be a person holding it away from camera for fill flash or to produce light from a different angle.

[digital]

No. Your camera does not have a built in radio transmitter for RT flash. Currently there is no camera on the marrket that has that. You need another 600 or an ST-E3-RT transmitter. It is the same as the 600 but has no flash head. A Canon 600 as a master can fire in radio mode or optical mode but not both at the same time. It is one or the other. The transmitter is only radio transmission capable.  

FYI. Canon RT only plays nicely with Canon RT. You cannot mix and match with other 3rd party trigger systems except for one current exception. Yongnuo has released the ST-E3-RT clone. It is called th YN-E3-RT.             

[Rkc51246]

Can the Canon 600 ex-rt be attached by cable, and if so, any length maximum?

Wonder when Yongnuo will have a 600 ex-rt clone.

[digital · Accepted solution]

Yes it can. It is basically the same as any pre 600 flash. No one knows when the YN 600 will be released. I have 600's and the  STE3 and am very happy with the set up.

This might help.

[Mod note - link removed per FORUM GUIDELINES]

You can contact Lon at this place and he can help you as well. Good site.

[Mod note - link removed per FORUM GUIDELINES]

[digital]

Sorry mods. Just do a search of off camera cables for Canon ETTL flash.    

[Skirball]

You're really deleting links to third party cables?  How oppressive.  I don't think Canon even makes an eTTL cable that is longer than a few feet, do they?

To Op:  I don't think there is a length limit (within reason).  I have a 15 foot cable from Syl Arena and it works fine, and they also make a 30 foot cable.  That said, I never use mine, I use Yongnuo wireless triggers instead.

[TCampbell]

If you use a physical cable to attach an E-TTL flash then you're limited to just one single flash.  E-TTL doesn't deal with multiple devices (it's not a "bus" intended for lots of devices... it's a point to point connection between just a camera and single flash.

As far as I've ever been able to find, Canon does not make a full off-camera E-TTL cable other than their short OC-E3 cable.  But that's only a couple feet long and really intended to let you move the flash from camera to a flash-bracket (or to allow the photographer to hand-hold the flash a bit higher or off to the side.)  For mulit-flash setups you have to use the simpler 2 pin cables (trigger only... no E-TTL).

I have two 600EX-RTs and eventually picked up the ST-E3-RT as well.  This allows full control of the off-camera speedlites via radio.  

The price of a 600EX-RT isn't substantially higher than the price the 580EX II used to sell for... and yet the 600EX-RT has radio built-in (at least it does in the North America market.  If you live elsewhere check the specs.  Some countries do not allow Canon to use the radio so they sell a 600EX non-radio variant.)  If you check the price of a radio-based E-TTL system (like the Pocket Wizard Flex/Mini system), those radios are fairly expensive.  PocketWizard charges $200 for the Mini (transmitter only module) and then $230 for each Flex (transceiver which is required for each flash).  If I were to use a PW transmitter on camera and then add a tranceiver to just 2 flashes, that would run about $660 ... no flashes for this price... just the radio system to talk to them.  

The 600EX-RT is listed by Canon at about $550, but several major vendors are currently selling it for about $450 (shop around.)

If you subtract the $230 that PW charges for an E-TTL transceiver, that's like bringing the cost of a 600EX to $220 or stated differently, considering the 600EX-RT is now about the same price as a 580EX II, it's like Canon is throwing in the radio technology for free.   You just need to make sure you have a transmitter on your camera (currently zero Canon cameras include a radio transmitter.  You'd either need a 600EX-RT on camera to act as a transmitter or you'd need an ST-E3-RT which is radio-transmitter only (no flash).  Keep in mind that the ST-E3-RT is _radio_ only.  Not radio and optical.  If you have other Canon flashes that use optical (e.g. 580EX II, 430EX II, etc.) then the RT wont work with them.  Also, you cannot do radio and optical at the same time.  E.g. a 600EX-RT on-camera used as a controller is able to control remote flashes either via radio or via optical, but you have to pick one mode (it wont do both simultaneously).

The Canon system offers substantially more control over off-camera flash than any other radio system on the market.   The system is comprehensive to the point that most of the things that previously required that you walk up to the flash to control can now be controlled via radio.  This is especially nice when the flash is hiding in a soft-box... you don't have to open the box to adjust settings.

Some time ago, I was at a local "real" camera store and in their used-camera case, they had a PILE (and I do mean pile... there must have been 20 or 30 of the things) full of PocketWizards.  Puzzled by why they should have so many, I asked the sales person and he told me that since they do let people trade-in old gear (as long as it works), they had a lot of photographers who were trading in their PWs for the new Canon RT system.

[digital]

This day and age I would not even consider PW. They were pioneers but have had issuses and are not doing well right now. Too many less expensive and more reliable 3rd party systems out there. However the comparison was good.          

[Stephen]

Hey Skirball,

Our general "rule of thumb" is that we remove links to sites that say "buy this here," unless it's for a reputable or big-name dealer. This isn't because we sell an item directly, per se, it's to help protect the community from being taken advantage of by anyone, be it another user, or a potential malicious site. 

I hope that helps clarify things a bit!

[Skirball]

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@Stephen wrote:

Hey Skirball,

Our general "rule of thumb" is that we remove links to sites that say "buy this here," unless it's for a reputable or big-name dealer. This isn't because we sell an item directly, per se, it's to help protect the community from being taken advantage of by anyone, be it another user, or a potential malicious site. 

I hope that helps clarify things a bit!

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Got it, thanks for clarifying.  My apologies, I didn’t realize that it was a link to a purchasing site, I incorrectly assumed that it was simply a page discussing alternate technology.