Strobes Affect on ETTL

[DSWfoto]

Up until now I've always shot speedlites (Generallly in ETTL). However, I'm considering adding an Einstein to my arsenal.

Am I safe to say that once I add a strobe to a scene that I have to shoot entirely in Manual flash mode at that point as I wouldn't get the benefit of measuring that strobe as part of the preflash measurement? I'm also guessing that if I had a constant light (i.e. Spyderlite), I could still use ETTL effectively.

[cabbiinc]

It depends on how you trigger the strobes. If you use the built in optical triggers you will have a negative affect. The preflases of TTL will set off the strobes, the camera will meter that and tell the flash that it doesn't need to fire at a very high power, the camera will then take the picture with TTL metering off and the studio strobes won't have recycled yet.

However if you use radio triggers to fire the strobes they will go off at the right time. Now you just have to worry about how much they will add to your already (presumably) ample exposure coming from your TTL flash. I've heard that people have very good results using the strobes on the background (where you may or may not want the exposure to be very drastic from the main exposure) and use TTL for the main subject.

[kphotodave]

I'm a Nikonian, but I can comment on the Spiderlights affecting your ETTL metering. I used my old hot lights with some daylight balanced cfl's (basically what the spiderlights are) and my speedlights reverted to fill, and basically nothing. They don't like the constant lights, especially from cfl's.