Differences between ettl protocols:

i was looking at matthias's camera compatibility chart for his oem ettl converter here and noticed that it says that the converter supports the 1dsII camera and not the 1dII. this got me wondering if there was a difference in the protocols in ettl in these 2 cameras? Does anyone know if this is the case?

i will be sending a mail to matthias, but i was wondering if one of our gurus here in the board would be able to enlighten me.

thanks in advance for your help

/paul

Yes, the MarkII series of cameras uses eTTL2 and the first series uses eTTL

Cheers

James

Introduction of every new camera model has required us to tweak the conversion circuitry used up to that point, which is why we put the circuitry in the housing rather than the strobe.

http://www.ikelite.com/web_two/dsttlplans.html

If you use Canon strobes, E-TTL has maintained its compatibility since introduction (I think it was 1996). All E-TTL strobes are compatible with all EOS cameras (film and digital) delivering E-TTL. Even E-TTL II does not require a new strobe as it is a feature of the camera. That means, you can plug a 550EX strobe from 1998 (which was sold for film cameras at that time) on the latest EOS camera and you get E-TTL II features (like lens distance information taken into calculation, etc.). From a common topside Canon shooter's point of view, E-TTL has always been the same since its introduction many years ago.

The problem with non Canon E-TTL (II) electronic devices is that Canon has never published the data protocols used by Canon strobes and cameras. Amphibic strobes and conversion tools have been reverse-engineered based on the behaviour of some existing Canon cameras. New Canon cameras usually require “something†Canon has implemented into their E-TTL strobes years ago already. But third party manufactures have to update their units frequently to work with new Canon camera models. So the compatibility is limited to the cameras the reverse-engineering was successfully done for. No matter if the camera uses E-TTL II features or just E-TTL.

Julian

thanks for all that input