Flash zoom and 1.6x factor

[David_Burren]

One of my disappointments with the D30 is in its handling of flash zoom. Bear in mind that most of my disappointments are in my own photographic technique and I love the camera - this is just one of the peeving areas.

I'm often using a 420EX, and I would have expected the flash's zoom to match the field of view of the lens (i.e. 1.6x the actual focal length). Unfortunately this is not the case - the flash is wasting energy illuminating areas (2.56 times the viewed area!) that will never get recorded, reducing the range and increasing the recharge interval.

I would have expected the D30 to translate the focal length information passed to the flash to account for this, but no. I suspect the flash is reading this information directly from the lens (given the way the flash behaves when the camera's off and the lens is changed) and so there may be some engineering "issues" involved and it may not be fixable via a simple firmware update, but it's still a disappointment.

Can anyone shed any light on what is going on?
Chuck - is this behaviour likely to carry over into the EOS-1d (or whatever it's called)?
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DavidB

[ChuckWestfall]

Hi, David:

I understand your point, but keep in mind that the degree of change you're looking for here is somewhere in the vicinity of 1/3 to 1/2 stop more output than the standard settings, in other words not much of an improvement. Since the extra range would usually only come into play for long-range telephoto shots, you could compensate by using a 3rd-party condenser lens like Tory Lepp's Project-A-Flash or Arthur Morris's Better Beamer.

I can't comment on individual specs of next year's high-end digital SLR, but I will forward your concerns to Canon Inc.

Best Regards,

Chuck Westfall
Manager/Technical Information Dept.
Camera Division/Canon U.S.A., Inc.

[David_Burren]

Chuck wrote:
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Since the extra range would usually only come into play for long-range telephoto shots, you could compensate by using a 3rd-party condenser lens like Tory Lepp's Project-A-Flash or Arthur Morris's Better Beamer.
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I prefer the Better Beamer myself for telephoto work. At that point the issue of flash zoom is moot anyway - not many flashes zoom out much past 100mm natively anyway.

As I mentioned, range is not the only issue. Reducing the expended energy will reduce the recharge time and allow me to take more flash shots in a continuous sequence. Now, I'm happy for someone to tell me I can use something like a 550EX with an external power pack (which comes to a fair amount of extra $$ - although everything's relative) but it seems a waste that the flash isn't being used to its best potential by default.

Again, Chuck wrote:
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I can't comment on individual specs of next year's high-end digital SLR, but I will forward your concerns to Canon Inc.
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Thanks, I guess that's as much as I was hoping for
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David Burren

[Lonny_Shavelson]

David,

re using the 550 EX with an external power pack. I've got mine working with my Quantum battery pack, and it's very sweet. Seemingly endless supply, and ultrafast recycles. Quantum makes an adapter for the 550EX.

Lonny