R.I.P Metz Speedlites.

[AvTvM]

...
Nothing about RT-Controls - but i like RT with Flashes.

Slightly out of Topic - anyone knews an Remote Trigger for Canons RT - System, not on Cam, for any
Slave Flash - so i can use a Flash as a Slave triggered by 600 EX-RT / ST-E3RT ?

Grüße aus Wien.

Unfortunately as of today I am not aware of any Canon [radio wireless ETTL] RT-compatible tranceiver. According to flashhavor.com Chinese company Shanny seems to be working on one and possibly others too.

If Metz were to offer a fully compatible RT-transceiver at reasonable cost, it would be the first Metz I'd ever buy. In an instant. ANd more than one. Many other Canon RT users would probably do so as well.

It would allow us to integrate non-RT Canon speedlites [580/430] and compatible third party ETTL speedlites into an RT lighting setup - at least as slave flashes.

However, it is probably highely unlikely that Canon would license the RT protocol to any third party manufacturer. And in Germany one cannot simply copy other companies protected designs or patents without being taken to court ... whereas in China that ain't necesarily so. Very unfair, and one of the unpleasant realities in the globalized economy.

 

[LDS]

You might want to check out the Pixel mago, then.

That's exactly the reason companies like Metz can't survive - lots of cheap Chinese clones of branded units. With little R&D costs and cheap manufacturing. it's very hard to compete - especially since it's now easy to ship overseas, and most buyers looks for cheap prices above all.
Unluckily, electronics is much easier and cheaper to clone than lenses and precision mechanical parts. But wait for the mirorrless.... far less precision mechanical parts to build will open that market to cheap clones too...

 

[Hannes]

I never bought third party strobes for Canon. Price difference for Metz strobes vs. Canon speedlites was not good enough for me to take any compatibility risks with reverse engineered third party gear. ETTL II in itself is complicated and finicky enough to avoid any additional source of problems.

Actually, afaik metz (and nissin) don't reverse engineer but licence the ettl protocol from canon which would be a reason they are more expensive as well.

As for Chinese labour, it is now getting expensive to produce over there. I know of several smaller manufacturers in the outdoor industry that are thinking of moving their production back to Europe. It would cost virtually the same but cut lead time by months. In the coming years I expect a lot of production to start shifting to south America and the stable bits of Africa like SA.

Hello Hannes!

Please be a little bit more careful when inserting a quote.
Surely not on purpose, but you made a quote from AvTvM and by erasing the wrong lines made it a statement said by me, which is definetly wrong and in other cases can cause trouble for me and others.

Thank you very much, hannes, to be aware of this in the future.

Yours,
Maximilian

PS.: It'll be best to use the preview function to check, if it's okay.

Sorry about that, was doing the posting on a phone which is bloody difficult if you need to do anything more than just type a straight up response. I've fixed my post.