New Pro Speedlite
I was told today that a new pro flash is in the process of being tested and will greatly benefit users of gels, as well as a “few other surprises” I haven’t been told about yet.
Feature List
– Gel info built into unit
– Custom gel accessories from Canon
– A guide number higher than 58. Perhaps as high as 70.
– Some functions of the flash unit are not yet available in EOS cameras, not even the 1D4. Possibly new camera firmware needed.
– Exact announcement date unknown, although 2010 is likely.
That’s all for now.
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68 Comments
Not to seem unthankful, but that’s kinda vague info. A new flash that’s better than current flash, with technology of the future will be available…in the future.
There is some info about gels and guide number.
Gels would be very nice. It would be great if the flash sent the color temp info of the gels to the camera.
Maybe they can just pay Nikon and use the patents for the SB900. Hopefully this new flash is way better than the 580EX II since the canon flash system is leap years behind Nikon.
it’s a CR1 rumor, and it’s got quite a few tidbits that are interesting. be more realistic?
Bring back the simple master/slave switch from the original 580 please.
I know it didn’t say it…but my own personal wish for the next 580 (and future camera models) is integrated RF control. ie., take out PW/RP with the next model.
Sometime in future this might be useful.
It was a nice step forward that the 7D could control flashes straight out of the gate, but it should’ve been in the 40D – Canon was really late to the party with that.
I can’t see that if a new flash has features that no camera on the market can use, that anyone will be willing to sell all their bodies AND flashes to upgrade for a long time yet…
Too bad there’s about 100 different colour tempertaure gels
Perhaps it would be Canon gels with a chip somewhere? XD
About time – Canon’s lagged behind Nikon on the lighting front for years now… and how old is the SB900? Canon users may not know it, but the 580EXII IS NOT a direct competitor to that beast… not even in the same league.
The SB-900 really isn’t all that old. 2 and a half years now, as I think it was announced with the D3/300. Incidently, that’s just 3 months after the 580II. It definitely out shines the 580II though. OTHOH, Nikon users had to deal with the too-weak SB800 for quite awhile, when we enjoyed the power of the 580.
I believe it was actually announced with the D700.
Since I don’t keep up with Nikon gear, would you mind explaining what makes the SB900 so awesome?
“I can’t see that if a new flash has features that no camera on the market can use, that anyone will be willing to sell all their bodies AND flashes to upgrade for a long time yet…”
Actually that’s perfectly logical and good marketing as well. You want new products to be using advanced technology and obviously in some cases some features may not be compatible with older technology but that’s a very, very good things since it drives innovation. Bodies will be upgraded as the time comes.
Then again, the older Nikon flashes like the SB26 are comparable power-wise to the 580EXII and have some better features.
It’s MASSIVE. That aside, one of the cool features was the 200mm zoom compared with the 105mm zoom of the 580EXII.
It’s like this directed laser beam of light ;)
Lulz. Auto & Flash WB would still suck canal water.
Didn’t you read the part about firmware upgrades for the existing cameras?
Here’s my Canon Speedlite Wishlist>
http://pixsylated.com/2009/07/syl-arena-canon-speedlite-wishlist/
Chipped gels are a lame feature. Use them all the time, but wouldn’t want to pay Canon to cut them for me.
Radio-based E-TTL is the future. Hopefully Canon will wake up and leapfrog Nikon. Just catching up would not be enough.
See my wishlist for more rants and specifics, plus the comments of 260+ other Canon photographers from around the world.
Eye-controlled flash power?!? :P Lulz.
What’s beastly about the SB900? Other than a 200mm zoom (compared to the 105mm on the 580EX II), there isn’t much about the SB900 itself that I’d like to have. Well, maybe the SU-4 optical slave feature as well. OK. those two things and the external switch for Master-Slave. But that’s all the SB-900 has (of value) that the 580EX2 doesn’t.
I think the chipped gels are an expensive gimmick. SB-900’s bigger guide number is largely due to tighter throw of 200mm zoom. At 105mm, it is comparable to 580EX II. The SB-900 overheats (or at least the heat warning sensor comes on) without much provocation. It’s zoned illumination patterns are interesting on paper, but of little help to me since I put my Speedlites through light mods most times anyway.
Now, if you want to compare a Yugo to a Mercedes, let’s talk about Canon’s ST-E2 transmitter vs. Nikon’s SU-800 commander. Canon’s Speedlites have the potential. It’s the crappy user interface and backwards thinking about what ‘togs want to do with wireless that holds Canon’s system back. It’s not the Speedlites.
I have a feeling it may be a radio based E-TTL since it’s not built in on any of the current EOS bodies. This will definitely leapfrog the competitor.
Just my thoughts.
How are the SB-900 and 580ex II different? It’s really hard to describe it but the SB-900 is a really complete controller and slave that has been programmed much more thoroughly. To say the least I always hated the crappy 580EX as a master simply because they made it overly difficult to control multiple groups of flashes.
The SB-900 is not only built a lot better, higher guide number, a built in heat meter that actually works but the program mode as a master flash is extremely precise. It allows you to be a lot more creative with off camera flash without really even thinking about it since it’s very easy to control each group of flashes independently. There’s really no comparison.
Not to mention when I was a canon shooter I had actually blown two 580EX II’s. When I say blown the units actually produced so much heat that it melted the front cover and put a hole in it. The 580EX II is still a nice flash but it is not nearly the same as the SB-900. I could seriously never go back.
You could measure the color temperature of the gel with 3 colored LEDs and calibrated sensors on the other side. All you need is a gel slot that is a bit deeper than the flash reflector.
Or you could put a bar code on the gel and read that automatically. But that would limit you to “official” gels.
That would be nice, along with better electronics engineering, as (apparently) the current flashes are so noise that they interfere with external RF control units.
I heard about this a few months back. It seems that the Pocket Wizard TT-1 and TT-5 noise interference from the 580-EXII made this upgrade necessary.
LENSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
MOAL RENSES!!!111
Are Gels really whats wanted with strobists? maybe they need a spot of red in an otherwise white scene. But otherwise post processing will sort most things i can think of. Really i’m interested in why this might be a good feature.
A lot of stobies like to use a 70-200, so it makes sense to up the power and lens coverage to match the 200mm end. In the past, there has been concentration at the wide end of the focal scale. But it’s well over due to start hitting the longer end. Personally, I’d like to see it go further. A 300mm option would be usefull for birding/wildlife for catchlights.
My only concearn is the size and price. The mkI 580 was a great size, the current MKII is just a bit too big. The current UK pricing for the mkII is nearly as much as a bottom end Elincrom or Bowens light but the 580II isn’t as powerfull.
…or just one white LED
…or just point it at a white target and take a pic with the flash+gel and use that to set the custom WB in the normal way.
You need to use gels a lot to match the strobe with ambient light, which is a really important feature. And a big part of the strobist movement is creatively colouring the light, so gels would come in handy for them.
Many thanks Yukob
to be fair, it is unlikely canon would about, or be inclined to “fix” the noise spectrum of the 580ex II just because the noise interference is affecting a third-party product.
why should canon spend money to fix a problem (the noise spectrum of the 580ex II) that does not affect the operation of its products???
don’t get me wrong, I have three of the PW FlexTT5 units so would like to see the noise spectrum issue resolved; but, i can’t see canon being overly bothered
Since when has Canon cared about legacy support?
As far as I know, that’s really more of a Nikon sort of thing (thinking lenses, here)
:)
You need to measure R G and B to calibrate the WB. Either you use 1 white LED with 3 sensors with color filters over them, or a different LED for each sensor, in that case the LED does not have to be white.
Bouncing off a white target can be done with any flash, no upgrade needed for that. As a matter of fact, it can be done without a flash ;-)
A nice feature would be to take the camera’s WB reading and display what filter is needed for the flash to give the same temperature, thus illuminating the whole scene, flash and ambient light, with the same WB.
I guess there are tables for this already, but a line in the display would be very practical.
Then why are you here ?. Wrong forum I guess ?.
Why can’t they build in Bluetooth technology into the EOS cameras and flashes to enable wireless flash/shutter triggering? I am not an electrical engineer, but I can’t understand why it wouldn’t work.
Bluetooth does not require line-of-sight. The maximum range for Bluetooth is 10 meters but can be extended to 100 meters by increasing the power. That’s more than enough for most applications.
Bluetooth devices are also protected from radio interference by changing their frequencies many times per second (frequency hopping). They also use three different but complimentary error correction schemes and have built-in encryption and verification for connection. This would work well in situations where there are multiple photographers (news scrums, etc.)
A lot of other components in the new cameras, like the 1DmkIV and the 7D, also seem to be antiquated. For instance, the Digic 4 processor uses DDR-SDRAM, but there is way faster RAM such as DDR5 available now. I’m sure using the DDR-SDRAM keeps unit costs down, but does it lead to a camera that could be capable of a lot more?
I don’t know – just thinking out loud!
The argument could be made that the external RF control units should implement better filtering and EMC protection. Ambient electrical noise is a fact of life when designing RF equipment.
genius.
The same external RF units seem to work well with Nikon and Metz flashes.
But anyways, a reasonable amount of noise reduction should happen both at the source (flash) and the receiver (RF control).
On my 580EXII, the flash seems to auto-zoom only when the head is pointed straight forward, ie. basically never. Do others manually zoom when bouncing?
… or maybe is outdoor fill done with direct flash?
There are better options than Bluetooth, but I agree a FHSS solution would be great.
sb800 and sb900 have almost same output,
i think because it drains battery life badly
Even though I’m not a Nikon guy, I bought and really enjoyed Joe McNally’s “Hot Shoe Diaries.” Based only on that and not personal experience, It certainly looks like Nikon’s flash system kicks Canon where the good lord split’em. I’d never switch to Nikon based on flash technology alone since can’t take the time to learn to focus “backwards” again (previously switched from Nikon to Canon in the early ’90’s). But it does make me think.
If such a flash does come from Canon in the future, I’ll be interested to look at it, but Canon has a lot of history to overcome before I’d buy one. I completely bailed on any kind of TTL flash about three years ago due to inconsistent fill flash performance, poor build quality, and outright self-destruction, such as corrosive fluid leaking from a 550 which ruined my $130.00 bag. (Canon replaced the flash, but said “sorry for your luck” on my bag.)
I’ve tried multiple flashes on multiple cameras and also tried a Metz 54MZ, but never got reliable fill flash performance or TTL metering, so it seems to be the system and not just one lemon flash (or three). Therefore, I still light the way I did in the 1980’s — with 283’s. After over 2 decades, I can set them up and know pretty much exactly what I’m getting faster than I could set up master and slave TTL units. Plus, I have less money in my 6 283’s (35 to 50 bucks each on eBay) than I would in a single Canon 580.
+1
Since the small flashes tend to be used more for ‘on location’ work than big studio lights… with big studio lights you can just blow away whatever lighting is already there… with little flashes, you tend to need to work with what’s there.
It’s funny, the 580EXII is better than the ST-E2 for controlling multiple flashes, and I’d say that the 580EXII hooked up on top of a 40D/5DII/etc is really nice and easy to control multiple flashes, since you can do it all through the camera menu system.
It REALLY annoys me that the ST-E2 doesn’t give you the same control options as a 580EXII when its on camera!
Yeah, but lets see you carry around a Bowens for shooting birds.
You’re paying for the portability… but agreed, its a pretty high price!
I’m sorry to ask that but… what are “gels”?
For the majority of us who will never use multiple off-camera flashes, is the Nikon gear truly “leap years” ahead?
Gels are transparent strips that your can stick over your flash light. They can serve several artistic purposes but are particularly useful for balancing out the bright white flash light with the scene’s ambient light. For instance, if you use a flash indoors with you home lighting the flash will look very white and the ambient light fairly orangey. Gelling the flash with a similarly orange-tone will make the flash light appear similar to the ambient light. The main benefit of this is that you can make shots well illuminated without making it obvious that a flash has been used at all. Also, any post-production work is much, much easier when the ambient light and flash lights are similar tones.
Bluetooth will cost them money.
One word…
Yes
I seriously doubt it would have a colour temp meter built into the flash.
It will be a copy of the Nikon system that has accessory gels with a chip in them or whatever.
Well, gee that really clears it up for me.
Yes, because the Autozoom feature is only relevant if it’s above your lens, pointing in the same direction as the lens. The idea is that it has roughly the same coverage as the lens has, so it lights up what the lens sees. Hence “Auto”.
If you’re bouncing it, then the coverage of the bounce will be different to that of the lens, so it can’t be auto any longer, can it?
Have you not read anything else here or ever looked at the differences between the two flashes? The difference isn’t that hard to see… And it doesn’t take that long to do a simple investigation of your own….
It’s good to know what the other side is using… They are all tools! When the best tool for the job is in the other guys tool box and you’re not even aware of what he might have… Doesn’t put you in a good position.
Thanks! :)
That’s filters. You put those on a flash to color the light, to make it more warm, or cold….or purple if you prefer :) You can find some interesting materials on what can you achieve with it written by Lee Frost. You can as well find interesting methods by Lee Frost to do lightning without a flash, like flashlight and many other tools and it can be much better than the flash.
I only work with radio slaved flash. either BALCAR, alien bee or 550EX.
I had a 580 EX and a 580EX II, burn both of them using the idiot QB1+ in the battery tray/Digital camera battery on the HV port. got back on 550EX as i found them ULTRA RELIABLE and pretty idiot proof.
I dont rely on wireless TTL transmitted via infrared… this is just not usable for a pro.
things i would love to see =
A PROPER (same as quantum T2) sequence mode.
A TRUE FAST RECYCLING over HV port
A BUILT’ IN RADIO REMOTE, COMPLIENT WITH PW FLEX TT5
A detachable head to do barebulb
AND PLEASE GIVE ME THE 1/500s syncroflash back !
Seems to me that you’re just blowing smoke out your butt. I’ve read plenty, and the only notable difference I’ve seen is the CLS stuff, which is irrelevant for anyone who’ll never mess with a multi-flash setup.
I’m dreaming of a built-in LCD panel between the bulb and the diffuser that could be programmed to simulate a gel. A bit like the LCD in a projector, but the image would just be a single colour set by the camera. The resolution could be only a few tens of pixels, as the diffuser would merge the RGB elements together. It would probably kill the light output, though.
Wow… my butt… Guess people like Joe McNally are blowing smoke too…
Have you shot with an off camera flash? Not multiple, just one? Have you read anything about the benefits of off camera flash? If you are shooting with an off camera flash, how are you controlling that flash?
Are you shooting with a camera that can act as a “commander”? (not using a third party device…) If you’re shooting Canon, the short list of those capable is the 7D. If you’re shooting Nikon, the list is longer… (D90, D300s, D700 or the last 2.5 years worth of camera bodies) So, apparently Canon now agrees that the system of being able to shoot with an IN CAMERA “commander” unit is of enough importance (Nikon’s had this for years… not months… years…) that they’re now bringing it out in their latest camera bodies that have an on camera flash.
You’re right, it’s the system… I’m a Canon shooter but have invested a lot of time investigating the benefits of adding a Nikon system to my bag of tricks because there are things that their system will do that Canon’s simply will not do… yet. I guess 2.5 years is enough time for Canon to realize it might just be a good idea… So a better system and added features to the flash and availablity for YEARS longer than Canon… hmmm… maybe their on to something…
It’s not just a multi-flash set up, it’s ANY off camera flash set up… for which some of us have spent a lot of money investing in other forms of kit (pocketwizard TT1 & TT5) just to get our Canon kit to “work more like a Nikon”…
I’m assuming you have a diffuser for your Canon Flash… was it one that was specifically designed for your Canon flash or is it one that you can buy for ANY brand of flash just as long as it slips over the end or attaches somehow? Do you have a gel pack that was designed specifically for your flash? Does it talk with the camera to let it know which color you’ve installed? The answer to both is NO.
Rumor has it… Canon FINALLY thinks these things are a good idea and their customers might actually want this stuff! Amazing! Good thing there are really only two leaders of the pack in the camera world… I guess second place is OK with Canon for now… guess they measure their success differently…. Customer talk to me with purchases. Having the best kit to do the job is important enough and now Canon agrees….
Don’t mind me… I’ll just keep in the corner and keep on smokin’!
What I meant to write was “never use ANY off-camera flashes”. What’s written above is either about off-camera flash, or about topics that I didn’t address at all.
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2010/02/its-time-for-pc-jack-to-die.html