Canon Flash E-TTL II

[Wocka]

Gidday,

I'm looking @ purchasing a Canon 580EX flash ( 580EX cause it's the best and should probably over buy and let my skills catch up to the equipment ) for my 350D.

Does the E-TTL II flash's work with their distances for non Canon Lenses? I'm also looking @ the Sigma 30mm 1.4 and wondering if this flash / body / lens combo will work with these features?

Does anyone on the forum use these features with non Canon lenses?

Cheers

[DaveB]

Does the E-TTL II flash's work with their distances for non Canon Lenses? I'm also looking @ the Sigma 30mm 1.4 and wondering if this flash / body / lens combo will work with these features?

Just to be clear, all of the EX flashes will work in E-TTL or E-TTL II: the extra features of II are implemented in the camera body, not in the flash.

The underlying question you have is whether the lens reports distance information to the camera. If yes, it will be used in E-TTL II calculations.
In the Canon EF lenses, the only lenses that report distances to the camera are those with ring-USM focus motors. Some of the other lenses have distance scales marked on the focus ring, but without ring-USM it doesn't send the information to the camera.
All I can tell you is that I have one Sigma HSM lens (the 180mm/3.5 macro) and it does NOT report focus information to the camera body. So unfortunately I'd have to say that the odds are low that the Sigma 30mm/1.4 does.

If you can take a test JPEG image with that lens on the body you should be able to determine the answer. The Canon software should report it to you for that image.

[petal666]

All I can tell you is that I have one Sigma HSM lens (the 180mm/3.5 macro) and it does NOT report focus information to the camera body.

Do you have the DG version though? That MIGHT make a difference but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[DaveB]

Do you have the DG version though? That MIGHT make a difference but I wouldn't hold my breath.

No I don't, but as my understanding is that the only change with the DG version is that they've use different coatings on the rear elements, I wouldn't hold my breath on that either.

[spada]

Hi DaveB

As discuss above, those third party lens like Tamron 28-75 dose not report the distance to the body that use this information to cal power applied to the flash, one question is will the flash work correctly with those third party lens.

Regards
spada

[petal666]

Yes. ETTL still works.

[DaveB]

Sorry, I missed this followup.

Yes the flash still works, it's just that one of the optimisations that the metering algorithm can use is not available. In most scenarios I doubt you'll notice the difference.

[oli]

( 580EX cause it's the best and should probably over buy and let my skills catch up to the equipment )

Then you can't lust for anything better either! Good choice!