580 EX II slave issues

[Josh101]

Ive tried it one or two times now, i have 2 EX580 II flashes, i will set the one on my camera on Master, and the other strobe on Slave, i made sure they are both on the same chanel but it for some reason the slave wouldent flash! ive tried changing channels and changing from slave "A,B,C" but still no Luck, is there somthing im missing here?

[TeeJay]

maybe you could tell us a little more about the conditions under which you are using them?

Indoors, outdoors, bright sunlight?

Do they work independantly?

TJ

[Josh101]

the two flashes work perfect, and both are less than a year old. when attached to my camera both work perfectly fine. the master/slave function worked once about 2 months ago when i tried as a test inside my house but whenever i have tried on location the slave has been failing me.

i was in my highschool auditorium when i tried to use the feature last
its not a big room, i would be suprised if you could fit 300 people
i was maybe 20-30 feet away from the slave at all times
the room is lit with your school standard florescent lights
what i wasnt understanding is why the slave wouldent fire even if i had the flashes facing eachother in a direct line of sight without obstruction.

[tim]

Try this:
- Turn on camera, put one flash in hotshoe, turn on both flashes.
- Switch on-camera flash to master, other to slave.
- Put the slave on a table near you, with a direct line of sight between the masters flash head and the slaves red plastic thingy.
- Hit the test button on the master. The slave should flash about 1 second after the main flash goes.

If it doesn't check the channel (1/2/3) and the A/B/C thingy. I forget what they're called. Master should be A, slave should be B, channel should be 1 on both.

[Lotto]

Canon's spec says the master's angle of coverage is about 80 degree, that's about 40 degree on each side of camera/lens axis, so if your flash is off to the side and there is no surface to bounce the IR signal around, misfire will happen.

From my personal experience, I can fire the Canon slave even in bright sunlight if the slave is in front of the camera. But once the slave is off to the side, that's when the headache starts. With the 580 as master, I could turn the flash head toward the slave and solve the problem. When I don't have time to play with settings and placements, radio triggers always comes in handy.

[tim]

Outside I point the master's flash head directly towards the red panel on the slave, and I zoom the master in to make the connection more reliable.

[TeeJay]

I may be wrong, but isn't the range restricted to approx 10 meters (30ft) anyway?

TJ

[miralas]

i have the same problem as this guy and i was actually just about to make a thread on it. ill try pointing my master's flash directly at it and zoom and see if that works. if not, whats a cheap/ reliable set of flash triggers?

[PacAce]

If the flashes are being used outdoors and it's sunny out, make sure the sun is not falling directly on the IR sensor of the flash. It it is, either reposition the flash so that it doesn't or use a sun shade.

[TeeJay]

....whats a cheap/ reliable set of flash triggers?

Those two words don't go hand-in-hand very often!

TJ