Canon. Auto Intelligent NOT Artifical Intelligence.
So, Canon decides to release a new flash. The 470EX AI; Auto Intelligent NOT Artificial Intelligence. Yep.
This is what B&H overview reads like:
“Helping to reduce the intimidation of flash photography, the Speedlite 470EX-AI from Canon is a unique on-camera light featuring Auto Intelligent Bounce technology. This function measures the room you are working in, along with the set focus distance, in order to automatically tilt and rotate the flash head to produce even, diffuse, and clean bounce flash results. This function can be used in full-auto mode, where the flash automatically determines all settings, or in semi-auto mode, where you can set the angle of the flash and it will automatically rotate depending on the specific camera position or orientation in use.”
So, basically, it like, automatically swivels the flash head finding the best angle to bounce your light off of completely eliminating the need to have basic flash knowledge.
Initially, I thought it ridiculous and quite stupid, however, upon further stewing of the idea and technology, I actually think it will be tremendously useful even for the most knowledgeable flash photographer.
Now, by no means am I a flash master. Joe McNally my name is not. However, I know my way around speedlites and studio strobes quite well.
My initial reaction was if you don’t know the best angle to bounce your flash you shouldn’t be using flash at all. Yes, that’s a very arrogant and perhaps elitist attitude. I’m sorry. But then I started to think about past events I shot...
When you’re shooting events like weddings and anniversaries you’re constantly on the move. You angle your flash but within seconds you do a complete 180 and your angle should change with you. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I forgot to adjust my flash head. Not because of not having the knowledge, but, because of it just not being on my mind and getting the shot is. Now, that’s no excuse. One should always be aware of their flash angle but I’m human. I have an imperfect brain and it forgets things and under stressful fast moving situations it tends to glitch from time to time.
And that’s when it clicked for me. Canons new 470EX AI flash has the potential to eliminate this part of our workload. And that to me is AWESOME. One less thing to worry about when you’re running and gunning. This doesn’t make you any less of a photographer but rather it’s aiding you to achieve your artistic vision by eliminating some of the more mundane mechanical aspects of our job.
Also, what’s wrong with a new technology helping beginners to learn the art of photography? Far be it from anyone to look down on anyone for using new tech to learn. We all started from the bottom with little to no knowledge. Leave a comment and tell me what you think!
Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Here’s a link to the Petapixel article regarding the new speedlite:
https://petapixel.com/2018/02/25/canons-470ex-ai-worlds-first-flash-ai-bounce/