wireless triggering Canon 650d with profoto d1

Question

I have a Canon 650d with 600ex-rt speedlite. I'm interested in wedding photography, but wondering about cases where the ceiling is very high, so that bouncing the 600ex-rt will be useless.

I want a heavy duty flash head (1000 watt or stronger) so I am thinking of buying a Profoto D1, but I'm confused over which is the ideal wireless triggering system to use with this flash. For example: Can I use Canon st e3 rt (to get maximum benefit in triggering profoto d1 with the 600ex-rt together).

Or any other better solutions?

Answer 1

The ST-E3-RT cannot trigger the D1 directly--the only light that "speaks" the Canon RT radio protocol is the 600EX-RT. And the D1 Air transmitters cannot trigger the built-in RF receiver in the 600EX-RT directly, although you might be able to add an Air Sync to the 600EX-RT and use their system to get TTL from the D1, if that were a priority for you.

Probably the easiest way for you to sync both lights together would be to use the built-in optical trigger on the D1 with the 600EX-RT as its master. Chances are, you couldn't use TTL, though.

Answer 2

Another option may be to invest in more 600EX-RT flashes and mount them together to multiply the power (it would also be possible to fire them on lower power settings to increase recycle speed). This way you would be able to control them all using the ST-E3-RT in the hotshoe.

Using more 600EX-RT flashes would also allow more flexibility in lighting setup if you chose to place the flashes around the room rather than all in one place at smaller venues.

Answer 3

Have you actually had any issues with the 600EX-RT not having enough power to bounce off a high ceiling? In my tests, I've been able to throw light VERY far with it. I've bounced off 20 to 30 foot ceilings with no problems, though I was shooting ISO 1000 or 1250 at the time on my 5D Mark iii.

If you need a little more directional light, using something like a lumiquest quickbounce to throw a small portion of the light forward while bouncing the rest for softening works great.

The bigger problem I've run in to is when the ceiling isn't a proper color for bouncing, but at that point, more power doesn't really help since the problem is the characteristic of the light, not the power.