I see a lot of information about using flashes, but most (if not all) are related (understandably) to digital photography. I want to shoot with my 4x5 large format camera, and a flash setup (not strobe).

Is it possible to use a Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT with a film camera? Actually the setup for my shoot will not be the camera attached to the flash, but to the transmitter. This is what my setup will look like:

  • I'm lighting the background with two hot lights (continuous lights--because I only have two flashes).
  • The subject, a person, will be lighted using two (2) 600EX-RT,
  • and I have one (1) ST-E3-RT transmitter that will control the two flashes.
  • The shutters on my lenses do have the X setting to sync flashes to it, and the apertures for my lenses range from f4 to f90.

Is this possible? I asked on another forum which is almost 100% about digital photography, and no one knew for sure if it was possible. Most seemed to think that you couldn't do what I wanted to do. I have shot with strobes connected to my lenses and it's worked, but I've never used my camera with flashes. How would I go about setting the flashes to use them with my 4x5?

(One thing I don't see in all the tutorials I've seen is how to set-up the power at which the flashes will light the scene. I know with strobes, this is shown as Watt percentage. You can regulate this as it pertains to your scene. Because most people use flashes with dSLRs, it is assumed you are using TTL and that the camera will automatically adjust to what the scene requires, but ... I'm not using a dSLR.)

These days I bet you don't get that many questions about using flashes/strobes using a manual (film) camera. This would be a great question to have "out there."

Thanks.