1. What is wireless ETTL flash control?
From the 7D camera manual:
"The camera's built-in flash can work as a master unit with Canon Speedlites having wireless slave feature and wirelessly trigger the Speedlite to fire".
In a nutshell, the 7D can control your Canon flashes as well as some Canon compatible 3rd party flashes.
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2. What external flashes can I use?
Currently, the list of confirmed flashes includes:
- Canon 580 EX II
- Canon 580 EX
- Canon 430 EX II
- Canon 430 EX
- Canon 420 EX
- Sigma EF 500 DG Super
- Sigma EF 530 DG Super
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3. How does it work?
The built-in flash emits a burst of flashes before the cameras shutter is opened to instruct the remote flashes to fire and to communicate the requested flash ratios and measure flash exposure. When the shutter actually opens, the built-in flash will fire again in one of two modes:
1) If the built-in flash iss enabled for the actual exposure, it will fire at a predetermined output level to contribute to the exposure.
2) If the built-in flash is only used to control the external Speedlites, it will fire at a very low power just to finally trigger the external flashes and not to contribute to the final exposure.
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4. I only want the external flashes to fire, but my built-in flash still fires?
When you set the camera to only control the external Speedlites, the built-in flash will still fire it's pre-flash to communicate with the external Speedlites. After the preflash, the built-in flash will emit a very low power flash when the shutter opens to signal the external flashes to fire. This sync-flash will not contribute to the final exposure (or minimally so).
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5. I thought the flash control uses IR, why do I see the flash?
The built-in flash is not capable of only emitting IR light - unlike Canon's ST-E2 flash controller, which uses IR LED's to communicate with the external flashes. The built-in flash emits the full spectrum of light which includes IR light that is received by the slave flashes. The ST-E2 pulses light in the same manner, you just can't see it.
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6. Do I need line of sight to all my flashes?
Yes, but ...
The IR receiver of the flashes needs to be able to "see" the flash emitted by the 7D. But that does not necessarily mean that the camera needs to be aimed directly at the flash. In an outdoor setting, you have to point the camera directly at the flash. In an indoor studio or smaller room however, the pre-flash may be reflected by the walls and ceilings however and still reach the flash even without direct line of sight.
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7. Can I use "dumb" optical slaves in combination with this wireless ETTL control feature?
No. Most regular optical slaves will trigger already when they see the pre-flash from the camera. Some optical slaves that are designed specifically to work with the Canon system and ignore the pre-flash may exist however and can be used.
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8. Does the 7D support wireless high-speed sync?
No. Unlike the 580 EX II in master mode as well as the ST-E2, the built-in wireless flash control on the 7D cannot enable wireless high-speed sync or 2nd curtain flash.
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9. How many flash groups/ratios does the 7D support?
The built-in wireless flash controls supports three flash groups - A, B and C.
If we assume the internal flash of the 7D is controlling three external flash groups, and these three groups are independent from each other, and the 7D's own flash also contributes to the illumination, we get a scenario like this:
1. Internal flash sends short coded flash burst, telling group A slaves to flash their pre-flash.
2. Group A flashes emit measuring flash.
3. Camera registers light level from the flashes in group A.
4. Internal flash sends short coded flash burst, telling group B slaves to flash their pre-flash.
5. Group B flashes emit measuring flash.
6. Camera registers light level from the flashes in group B.
7. Internal flash sends short coded flash burst, telling group C slaves to flash their pre-flash.
8. Group C flashes emit measuring flash.
9. Camera registers light level from the flashes in group C.
10. Internal flash emits metering flash for itself only.
11. Camera registers light level from internal flash.
12. Camera computes the required power levels for groups A, B, C and for the internal flash, to suit the settings for flash ratios and such the user has done, in relation to the distance from the flashes to their respective target within the image frame.
13. Internal flash sends long coded flash burst, to tell groups A, B and C which power level they should have, and that they should get ready to fire as dumb slaves.
14. Camera sets power level of internal flash.
15. Camera opens shutter and fire the internal flash synchronized with the shutter. The slaves see the sync flash and fires too.
Now if the internal flash is not supposed to contribute to the illumination of the image, items 10 and 11 above aren't executed.
In item 14, the camera will set a power level of about 1/512 of full power. This is low enough to not contribute much to the exposure (typically you'll have to go to ISO 1600, f/2.8 and a pretty short range to see it having any considerable impact), but still powerful enough to hopefully trigger the slaves. It's worth noticing that in this case it's probably enough to trigger one slave, as they are in this case just waiting for any flash to trigger, so the triggering will cascade through the chains of flashes, if they did get the command flash just before this event.
So the important change above, in items #3 and #4, is that the controlling flash always flashes when the image is taken, but at very low power if it's set not to contribute to the illumination.
Some technical notes:
* I don't know for sure where in the sequence items #10 and #11 happen, since Canon hasn't revealed that anywhere I've seen. But it doesn't matter. It must happen somewhere, even if it could be the first thing that happens, and the result is the same.
* The coded bursts are two bytes for the short ones, five for the long ones.
* If you use other settings than A:B C, the sequence is modified. When using A:B, for example, the C group is never asked to do anything.
* I've never looked closely at any ST-E2, but I'm under the impression that it does not use IR LED, but a normal flash tube, just with an IR filter in front of it. Don't know for sure, though.
* If you use a 580 EX II as a master, but tell it not to be included itself in the image, the trigger flash will be emitted with about 1/1024 of full power. The ratio is lower than for the internal flash in the 7D, but the power is stronger, since the guide number for the 580 EX II in this case is 28, compared to 12 for the internal flash.
* If you are using the internal flash in combination with the external one, the guide number for the internal flash could be as low as 4.
* If manual flash power is used, instead of E-TTl II, only items #12-#15 in the list in this post are executed. The required power isn't computed by the camera either, but set by the user.