Lighting, when it comes to flash, is a whole different language for photography. You can speak it (on-camera flash) or be fluent in it (off-camera flash) and even then there are varying levels of proficiency. By no means am I an expect or profess to know everything, but rather I’m a lifelong student who wishes to share what I’ve learned so far. For the most part I’ll be focusing on the Canon Wireless Flash system, in other words, triggering your Canon Speedlites using the built-in Canon flash trigger. I’m going to assume that you have a basic, intermediate, or even advanced understanding of off-camera flash, why you are or should be using flash that way and the general concepts of lighting. If not, I suggest that you check out David Hobby, better known in the photography world as Strobist, and his amazing blog on off-camera lighting here. You can start the Lighting 101 lesson here.

In order to get the full benefit out of this series of posts, you must use Canon and also use Canon Speedlites. For those who use Nikon and Nikon Speedlights, go buy Joe McNally’s The Hot Shoe Diaries or attend one of his workshops. You guys are fortunate, you have Nikon CLS (Creative Lighting System), which is phenomenal. For the rest of us who are already using PocketWizards, Elinchrom Skyports, Quantum FreeXWire, RadioPoppers, and/or a host of eBay wireless transmitters, let me introduce you to the world of E-TTL wireless flash and offer reasons of why you should add this to your arsenal of tools.