Wireless E-TTL for wedding formals

Ryan,

I know that Rob has used Nikon's iTTL system with multiple flashes, as I have.  However, for most of my formals and reception work, I have been using a combination of QFlashes and Sunpak 544s all set on manual and fired by Quantum Freewires.  When I was shooting film, I was doing this with monolights, but they tend to be bulky, need to be placed near outlets and with digital, I don't seem to need as much light.

I usually put upto four lights around the dance floor (or around the room).  This gives me great light on the floor and I can usually turn one or two and light anywhere in the room.  I also use one or two of these lights for the formals and even the ceremony.  No, I don't want to have a discussion about lights at the ceremony!  It depends on the church and the priest or minister and I often only use them for the processional.

I am slowly replacing my QFlashes with with the 544s.  They are smaller, lighter, cheaper and I have a few AC power cords for them so they don't always need batteries.  The QFlashes may show up in our classified section.  I just have to decide if I want to keep the Turbo batteries.

Ed

Follow up question about how smart the flashes are.  If I mounted two of the weaker powered 430ex's on one light stand, would the TTL system be smart enough to figure out that there are two and each one only fire half as much?  Seems like it should, but want to make sure and I'm away from my gear and can't experiment right now 

Well, I could be up in the night, but I did a large family group with two Nikon SB-600's on stands side-by-side in order to get enough light to spread across the entire group (42 people).  Honestly, I don't think it was because of the output, but because I was able to zoom both to their maximum (therefore increasing the GN of each), and rotate the second one slightly and get enough coverage with their full potential.  When I did this, I used a meter and set both flashes manually so I knew the light was even across the entire group.  I have had great success using them on TTL as well, wireless, with umbrellas, with one and two light setups, for smaller groups of 6 or less.  I don't know how they would work to light up an entire room, but they are great for having accessory lighting at great convenience and mobility.  I had a lot of trouble with this setup starting out, however.  I didn't really learn how to use them to approximate light patterns until I had my monolights.  I would suggest that you practice a few times before you just go for it.  The lack of modeling lights is the biggest detriment if you've never done much off camera lighting.  I completely botched a family portrait session I attempted while I was learning the technique (Luckily, they were friends and let me redo the shoot).

I say Go for it!  But I don't like on camera flash too much, so I really think it would be worth learning how to use your Canon lights.

Travis

Hi Ryan, there is a guy over at photocamel.com named Mark McCall that swears by Metz.  Evidently he uses mostly it on a stand with PWs.  His work looks pretty good but as always YMMV. 

I haven't heard anything  bad from anyone who has used them for any length of time and their top of the line has an external battery pack and a guide number of ISO 100/21° (105mm) 76 (meters).

http://www.metz.de/en/photo_electronics/mecablitz_76_mz5_digital.544.html

It's out of my budget but in the range of some of the lighting you are talking about and this one you can put your camera on it too. They claim to be compatible with Canon and Nikon...

   "With the new, ultra high performance handheld flash guns from Metz you now have reliable lighting support during all your digital photo shootings, too. Behind the tried and tested ergonomic design of Metz mecablitz 76 MZ-5 digital and 45 CL-4 digital you can find the latest flash technologies for digital cameras: for example, the E-TTL flash mode from Canon, i-TTL and D-TTL from Nikon or ADI flash control from Konica/Minolta."

Anyway, commercial is over.  I don't own stock but I did pick up an antique 60 CT 1, as you likely noticed, and as old as it is it's amazing.

mike