# 7D Wireless Flash question



## Diddy2theJJ (Jan 23, 2010)

Ok so I can fire the 580EXII speedlight wirelessly with my 7D which is very cool. But I can't figure out how to fire it without the onboard flash firing on the camera.

I have the speedlight set as the slave and on the camera i have flash as enabled and it looks like it's set to control the speedlight but they both fire...andybody know how to do this? 

Thanks,

Diddy


----------



## rufus5150 (Jan 23, 2010)

That's how the new canon system works -- it uses the on-board flash to trigger the 580 but you can set it to only fire the preflash from the camera (or in otherwords, only the 580 contributes to the image). 

IN the built-in flash function menu, select wireless, then the third option which disables the actual flash and only activates the preflash on the 7D.


----------



## Diddy2theJJ (Jan 23, 2010)

It doesn't look like that disables it...unless I'm doing something wrong, but it does give me the option to adjust their +/- separately. So if I set the onboard to -3ev and leave the 580EXII where it is that does seem to help but it doesn't turn it off.  Am I doing something wrong or is there another way to do this?

Thanks,

Diddy


----------



## rufus5150 (Jan 23, 2010)

Third option...

In the flash-control->built-in flash func. setting->wireless setting there are 4 options:

Disable
externalnboard
external
External+onboard

You want the 3rd option 'external' only (it looks like the single external flash). Then only the preflash fires from the onboard flash.


----------



## Diddy2theJJ (Jan 23, 2010)

That was it! I had it on that first but it looked like the onboard was firing so i switched it before I had read your first post.  With those settings it works. Thank you very much!


----------



## tommac (Jan 29, 2010)

Is this the same as with a 500D?


----------



## rufus5150 (Jan 29, 2010)

No.


----------



## CxThree (Jan 29, 2010)

Currently only the 7D has this feature in the Canon lineup.


----------



## Sam6644 (Jan 30, 2010)

I'm about to buy a 7D... what are your options for firing speedlights over radio?


----------



## CxThree (Jan 30, 2010)

You would dneed to look at Pocket Wizard, Radio Popper, etc.  The built in Canon wireless flash is just like nikon.  Line of sisght and done via the on camera flash firing at a very low level to transmit the command.


----------



## RCP (Mar 5, 2010)

Diddy2theJJ said:


> That was it! I had it on that first but it looked like the onboard was firing so i switched it before I had read your first post. With those settings it works. Thank you very much!


 
This didnt work for me, even when I have my settings exactly as how it SHOULD BE, my on-camera pop-up flash still fires during the shot.

Why is that??? What's the point of choosing channels if it reads off of a light signal?


----------



## Big Mike (Mar 5, 2010)

> This didnt work for me, even when I have my settings exactly as how it SHOULD BE, my on-camera pop-up flash still fires during the shot.


But is the light from the pop-up showing in the photo?  
The flash will still 'fire' but it's actually a split second before the shutter opens.



> Why is that??? What's the point of choosing channels if it reads off of a light signal?


If you are talking about what I think you're talking about....
The channels are not like choosing a radio signal channel.  It's so that you can control different groups of flashes.  For example, you could have three slave flashes to the right of the model, and three more on the left.  You could set them to group A or B etc.  Then from the on-camera control, you can change the FEC of each group.


----------



## RCP (Mar 5, 2010)

Big Mike, I think that helps a bit, so channel is not "radio channel" but just a method of determining what flashes to fire off that is set on a particular channel.. that makes more sense now.

And Yes, the images have the pop-up flash going off in them.  "?"


----------

