Canon EOS R5 with Speedlite 600EX-RF: No AF-Assist beam on Speedlite

neuroanatomist said:

The patterned red beams don't play nice with MILC AF. There are settings to activate/deactivate the Speedlite AF assist beam on the R-series bodies, but when activated the red beam doesn't fire, the main flash tube emits a short burst of HSS-like strobing to light the scene.

The setting is here on the R5:

View attachment 206127

On Canon's old 320EX and the newer EL-1 and EL-5 Speedlites, the LED lamp(s) are activated for AF assist (although the EL-5 won't work on the R5 at all).

The R-series bodies have a built-in orange LED for AF assist but it's not always useful. I find it helpful sometimes, but where it’s not helpful is with a subject in the lower left quadrant of the frame (sometimes an area larger than exactly a quadrant) because with my lenses the lens itself blocks the AF assist light from reaching that part of the field, even with the hood removed. I suspect that with something like the RF 50/1.8 or 35/1.8 it would be fine, but my smallest RF lenses are the 14-35/4L and 24-105/4L, and both block a good chunk of area (the 28-70/2L is worse).

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trinibajan34 said:

good day guys , i have the R10 and i'm using godox /flashpoint speed lites , I have set the camera menu for LED AF assist beam only and I did not get hss flash , i dont know what other settings are there to change.

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neuroanatomist said:

The patterned red beams don't play nice with MILC AF. There are settings to activate/deactivate the Speedlite AF assist beam on the R-series bodies, but when activated the red beam doesn't fire, the main flash tube emits a short burst of HSS-like strobing to light the scene.

The setting is here on the R5:

View attachment 206127

On Canon's old 320EX and the newer EL-1 and EL-5 Speedlites, the LED lamp(s) are activated for AF assist (although the EL-5 won't work on the R5 at all).

The R-series bodies have a built-in orange LED for AF assist but it's not always useful. I find it helpful sometimes, but where it’s not helpful is with a subject in the lower left quadrant of the frame (sometimes an area larger than exactly a quadrant) because with my lenses the lens itself blocks the AF assist light from reaching that part of the field, even with the hood removed. I suspect that with something like the RF 50/1.8 or 35/1.8 it would be fine, but my smallest RF lenses are the 14-35/4L and 24-105/4L, and both block a good chunk of area (the 28-70/2L is worse).

Click to expand...

deebatman316 said:

Actually the EL-1 speedlite DOES NOT use the LED lamp for AF Assist according to Canon's manual. The AF Assist Beam will be emitted by "Intermittent Flashes" regardless of projection method. When I tested out the EL-1 with an R5 and R6 bodies the speedlite did emit pre-fires for AF Assist. With my 600EX II-RT it also emitted the AF Assist Beam by Intermittent Flashes/ pre-fires. With my 430EX III-RT set to IR the speedlite also emitted Intermittent Flashes. It seems like the camera can override the AF Assist Beam projection even if the speedlite has an option for both IR and Intermittent Flash/ pre-fires.

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Peter Roek said:

Using my camera Canon EOS R5 in combination with Speedlite 600EX-RF the AF-assist beam doesn’t work at the Speedlite.
What can I do? Maybe wrong settings somewhere? Please help.

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neuroanatomist said:

Thanks for the correction, and good to know! I presume the EL-5 will behave like the EL-1, I'll find out when mine arrives next spring.

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deebatman316 said:

The info listed for the EL-5 says for AF Assist Beam it says "LED Lamp" so I believe that Intermittent Flash won't be used. It might use "Intermittent Flashes"/ pre-fires depending on the lighting conditions as the camera manual mentions.

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neuroanatomist said:

I suspect I looked at that (I reviewed the available information before preordering) and assumed the EL-1 was the same. Thanks again!

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deebatman316 said:

The only problem I see with the LED Lamp is that its not on the front of the speedlite. Like the rest of Canon's other speedlites with an IR AF Assist Beam. The lamp is under the main flash tube. When this speedlite is used in the bounce position. The LED AF Assist Beam wouldn't help the camera since its not facing directly at your subject(s). This also is a problem with some of Canon's speedlites that don't have an IR AF Assist Beam. With the speedlite in the bounce position the speedlite would pre-fire toward the ceiling (or wherever bounced at).

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neuroanatomist said:

I'm not too worried about that. If you're using bounce flash to illuminate a subject, then the AF assist will also bounce (whether it's the main tube strobing or the LEDs under the main tube on the EL-5). The R-series cameras need very little light to focus. I do wonder if, when the EL-5 head is elevated or rotated, the camera will use the onboard AF assist lamp instead of the flash.

The advantage of the EL-5 LEDs (and presumably why they're on the movable head) is that they also serve as a modeling light, which they could not do if located on the flash body.

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