Canon Rebel T3 and 320ex remote firing

[RootBeerTuna]

I recently saw a video on YouTube where the guy said that any flash can trigger another off-camera flash to go off without the use of a cable or wireless transmitter. Now, firstly, is this actually true? And if it is, does anyone know how I can get my 320ex flash to fire off camera using my Rebel T3? I'm too poor to buy an off-camera flash cable or wireless transmitter at the moment, but I'd really like to start experimenting with off-camera lighting. I do know that the 320ex can only be used as a slave, but I can't figure out at all how to fire it using my pop-up flash on my T3.

And if it turns out that this isn't possible to do at all, would I be better off buying a flash capable of being triggered by another flash, or an off-camera flash cable/wireless transmitter when I get some extra cash?

I don't shoot a lot with flash as I haven't really learned how to use it properly, but I was thinking that if I had some sort of off-camera flash system, I'd be more inclined to learn how to use it properly.

 

[TCampbell]

At it's core, yes it's true... but it's a bit more involved than that because there are a few ways to do it and it depends on what gear you have.

Canon (and also Nikon) have their own off-camera flash triggering protocols which are supported by SOME models of their own flashes as well as some 3rd party flashes.

For Canon, the off-camera flash needs to be able to work as a wireless slave. Not all models support this, but your 320EX and the higher models (430EX II, 580EX II, 600EX-RT) all do.

To TRIGGER the the remote flash, you need something on your camera that can function as a "master" to trigger the "slave" flash. Canon started building this feature into their DSLR cameras with the T3i and higher Rebel bodies, as well as the 60D, 70D, and 7D bodies. The T3, T2i, and T1i do not have built-in triggering.

You would need to add a Canon speedlite commander or flash with optical "master" capability. And actually... the Canon Speedlite 90EX can do this. The flash is sold stand-alone for $150 (and usually you can find it for a little less) but Canon sells the same flash bundled with their EOS-M (mirrorless) camera due to it's small size. I've noticed you can get this in a "white box" version (plain packaging). Basically that means someone wanted to buy the EOS-M without the flash so the retailer removed the flash, sold them the camera, and they sell the flash separately but it doesn't include retail packaging. Amazon sells the "white box" version for $70. B&H sells it for $99.

Using this, you'd have full E-TTL control of a remotely triggered flash. The master & slave do communicate optically... and this is where it gets confusing. If you do not want the light from the on-camera flash to be in your shot, this is possible (I haven't tested it on the T3, but every other Canon body I've used supports it)... but you will STILL see the flash fire. The trick is that the E-TTL system fires "pre-flash" when the shutter hasn't opened yet. It does this to work out the exposure and determine the amount of power needed for the shot and also to communicate with the off camera flash... THEN the shutter opens and the real flash fires. This all happens so quickly that most people don't realize the flash just fired multiple times (it looks like it just fires once). What you will notice is that you'll see the flash fire, but it will not interfere with the shot because in that "flash disabled" mode, it's really only firing the pre-flashes and not firing once the shutter opens.

Line of sight between master and slave is required for it to work.

It also turns out you can do it with ANY flash if you don't care about E-TTL. There are a number of companies who make either optical or radio triggers. A transmitter is either attached to the hot-shoe or sync-cord socket. A receiver unit is also required and either plugs into a remote sync-cord socket (if the flash has a sync cord socket) otherwise there are adapters you can get to attach it to the foot of the flash. When using 3rd party remote triggers you may have to slightly shave the shutter speed. In other words if the camera's flash sync speed was normally 1/200th, you might have to take it down to 1/160th to avoid any shutter vignetting.

 

[RootBeerTuna]

That's a lot of information to digest, but thank you for the response!

I had actually been thinking about buying the M flash as I did know you could use it to trigger other flashes, so I guess that's an option I can look into. I personally would rather buy another Canon flash and use it as a master, but that's not exactly in the budget as of now. I don't really see myself *needing* a flash setup any time soon, so I'll probably end up going with the cheapest solution. I don't even necessarily need to have 2 flashes at this point in my photography, I just wish to get my current flash off of my camera, so I may just end up going with an off-camera flash cord at some point. And I'm not really concerned about using E-TTL as I would like to actually learn how to use flash properly without it all being set automatically. I get frustrated fairly easily though, so I could see myself switching back to E-TTL often.

And yeah, I knew about the pre-flash and everything, sort of knew it for a few months, but only really figured it out fully recently when I started experimenting with second curtain flash and long exposures, which is extremely neat. I've fallen in love with long exposures recently, so I can see myself doing more of the second curtain syncing than anything else at this time. But, I know with Christmas coming, I know I'm going to be asked by family members to do some photos for them at various parties, so I figured I should at least attempt to learn how to use flash properly.

Anyway, thank you for the info.