Canon’s Flash Transmitter Revved

Canon is upgrading its existing ST-E3-RT transmitter, a flash trigger with a name silly even among Canon’s fever-dream-borne naming conventions. The – wait for it – “ST-E3-RT, Version 2” is now available at online retailers already.

What new features you ask? Most will never notice. There is a second curtain sync useful for long exposure users, and a “micro flash” power level (1/8192 of full power) that appears to be designed for fill flash for set photographers hoping to not – or not obviously – interrupt filming. The micro flash feature will work with the new, eye-bleedingly-expensive EL-1 flash, finally making that $1,100 at least have something the $500 60EX II-RT doesn’t have.

The Canon transmitter costs $300. Yongnuo already has its own version of its YN-E3-RT II, although instead of adding microflash, it opted to only charge $95.