Bad hotshoe on speedlite 550EX?

[pphun]

Hello,
I bought a used 550Ex to use with my Canon 1D. Recently I started having problems with the flash not wanting to separate from the camera's hotshoe.

From your collective experiences with this flash, would you say the problem is most likely with the flash or the camera's hotshoe?

It's gotten to the point I have ordered a new 580EX? because I can't afford to wrestle with that confounded flash everytime I use it on-camera and need to take it off camera.

Any insights and suggestions appreciated.

Peter Phun

[Jon]

Any other shoe-mount accessories? You might have dinged the hot shoe somewhere along the way. If they also hang up, that's a distinct possibility. Does the mount on the 550 show any scraping, or does the locking pin retract smoothly and cleanly (try it when it's off the camera)? Does it mount smoothly, but just give you a hard time de-mounting it? That would point toward the flash locking mechanism.

[scottbergerphoto]

There is a locking pin that comes out of the 550EX when you lock the collar. Sometimes it gets stuck. Check to see if the pin retracts when you turn the collar counter clockwise.

[pphun]

Thanks Jon and Scott,
I can't tell definitively what could be the problem. The camera hotshoe looks loose but that could be because I had to use force to yank it off the hotshoe??

The pin doesn't seem to retract when I turn the locking ring either. But I think it's probably the flash. What a pain that is! I have an off camera Canon cord which I use. Sometimes I have a hard time getting the 550ex off the hotshoe end of the off camera cord too.

It sounds like a fairly easy repair at this point. Still waiting for my CPS membership to be approved but if it doesn't come through the process here any day, I'll go ahead and send the strobe in anyway.

I have a feeling by the time CPS to approves my membership, I might already get the strobe back from repair.

Thanks for chimming in guys. I appreciate it.