Earlier today I was playing with the 7D’s ability to remotely command off-camera flashes. Up until now, I haven’t been able to, well, make it work, but I finally got it tonight.
The downside to the Canon system is that the on-camera flash is required to trigger any other flashes. Normally, this isn’t too big of an issue, but in my case, I’m right in Roxy’s face (as she would certainly tell you) and the on-camera flash was affecting the picture. So, this was taking with one hand being used to block the on-camera flash from hitting her, but far enough away that my external flash sitting on a foot stool to my left would see and trigger off of it. Got that?
Those of you more familiar with what I’m talking about might be wondering why I don’t get some other type of wireless trigger. Fact is, I have a Cactus V2s set that works most of the time, but takes CR2 batteries which I don’t really have on-hand. I would love a set of the much-more-reliable V4 triggers, or heck, Pocket Wizards, but I’m not really good enough at it to need those.
If you’re curious to learn more about what-the-heck I just said, I’d suggest starting here with David Hobby’s excellent series of articles about off-camera lighting.
