580exII master in ETTL trigger slave 1/2 second later

Bought to pull my hair out............using a 580 ex II as slave to trigger another 580 ex II and 2 430 ex II as slaves. It is as if it is a tiny preflash from the master then 1/2 second later the slaves fire off---at a very low power flash.

So I prefer to use them in manual and when I press the test fire button ---BOOM--they work fine and powerful.

Problem is I am trying to use an (Alien Bees) cyber commander with the paul c Buff receiver and it will not trigger in manual mode so I am forced to set it to ETTL even though they were not meant to control speedlites in ETTL.

Any idea what I am doing wrong? I will shoot Sunday & have to go back to using my Cheap China transmitter and receiver that always works instead of this $180 transmitter + $80 reciever.

Are you using the test button to check these in ETTL? You will probably find that you should set the master up on the hotshoe and press the shutter button - they will then fire correctly.

Yes, it sounds so. The purpose of the delayed trigger when using a 580 EX II as a master (you wrote slave, but that must be a mistake) to control slaves in E-TTL, is that you'll get a sequence of responses from the slaves, depending upon which group they belong to. So If you have slaves in groups A, B and C, and set the master flash to A:B C, then you'll get three different responses, separated by a few tenths of seconds, from the three groups.

Thank for info, I have used test fire button with master set on Ettl & it fire small pre flash followed by other 580 & 2 other 430's firing 1/2 second later. With the radio frequency transmitter on my hot shoe I tried again with the exact same setting and it did the same.

Then I switched the master to manual mode instead of ETTL and pressed the test fire button, then set it up on my camera hot shoe and it fired perfectly in both test.
Now with the same manual setting I use my radio frequency transmitter sitting on my hot shoe and then the receiver plugged into my 580 master (remember it is set to manual now).......nothing happens----no flash, no pre flash, nothing. This is the problem, it only trigger in ETTL but yet it can't control ETTL, the instructions says to always use speedlites in manual mode.

Response from Alien Bees forum since I used there trigger & receiver:

Cyber Sync is a manual only trigger. This means it sends one fire pulse per shot. Beyond that, how the speedlite uses that pulse is up to the speedlite. To my knowlege, Canon flashes cannot be set to be optically slaved from a remote triggered master. This is a design limitation in the speedlite that cannot be circumvented with the Cyber Commander.

My reply back to Alien Bees forum:


OK, thanks for reply, I wish I had known this last night trying to set up for todays shoot, I spent 5 hours and many more trying to find info on web and pulling my hair out wondering why it would not work.

Had no idea speedlites would not work like this. I have always used a cheap $30 transmitter and receiver set from China-no name brand, & it has always triggered and performed well but I wanted to upgrade to more expensive American brand & like Paul C Buff Company but.....
I hope cannon will change this in future or Paul C Buff suppliers come up with upgrade that can compete with cheap china product that does more, even what is not suppossed to be possible-like optically slaved from remote trigger. I will buy if you have it.
Thanks

Do I remember someone saying that the PC port is not active on the 580II when it is in eTTL mode? I seem to remember a discussion that you needed to use a hotshoe adapter to fire the Master 580 when trying to do a hybrid setup like you are. I only have a 580 V1 so I cannot test.
If you do need the hotshoe adapter, here is a good one from FlashZebra.
http://www.flashzebra.​com/products/0126/inde​x.shtml
I use it for all my off camera flashes even if they have a builtin PC port. The PC connection is too flaky for me.

I haven't tried, but it sounds reasonable, since if the flash can't communicate with a camera, it can't function in E-TTL. The E-TTL logic is to a great deal executed by the camera, not by the flash.

Thanks Dedsen for the link to flash zebra, didn't even think about checking with them. Just sent them an email asking if that will allow me to use 580 exII as master to trigger the others as a slave

Here is the thread that i remembered seeing about using hybrid setup.
https://photography-on-the.net …t=884569&highli​ght=hybrid

Ok Thanks.........I have decided to sell most of my speedlites and get White Lightning unit with soft box for studio. I will keep one speedlite in case I need it.