Controlling a remote Speedlite wirelessly
Unlock more creative lighting options
Although you can attach a Speedlite to the camera’s hotshoe where available (not all EOS M cameras have one), taking the light off the camera and positioning it somewhere interesting is the goal. To do this, however, you will need a way of controlling the flashgun remotely and triggering it when you shoot.
There are two ways to do this: using a wired connection or going wireless. A few years ago, we would have happily recommended the wired route, using an off-camera shoe cord. One end of this cable attaches to the hotshoe on top of the camera, while the other end is fitted with a hotshoe that the Speedlite slots into. While they’re okay for close-up photography, they can be a proper trip hazard for longer distance work.
But now, wireless flash is the way to go. It’s more versatile and incredibly convenient, particularly when you’re lucky enough to be working with more than one flashgun.
With a wireless system you need a transmitter on the camera and a receiver for each Speedlite. Some flashguns have transmitters built in, while others only have a receiver. Many have both. Some EOS cameras also have a built-in optical transmitter function, so you only need a single Speedlite to get started with wireless flash photography.
There are two flavours of wireless control: optical and radio. The optical system fires a beam of light between the transmitter and receivers, so the flashguns need to be visible to each other. If you’re working indoors, then you can may be able to angle the flashguns so that the beam bounced off the walls and ceiling. As well as optical transmission, high-end Canon flashguns offer radio transmission (look RT in the flashgun’s title). The key advantage of radio control is that there doesn’t need to be a clear line of sight between the transmitter on the camera and the receiver. You can hide a flashgun within a scene and it will still fire.