580 EX ll Reliability/Longevity?

FreddyHFK wrote in post #15852158
even with the flash off camera using only pilot button for test, in ETTL or Manual mode. in any case it triggers only on maximum power

The camera COMMANDS the ETTL flash to output less power, else the flash fires at full power. The exception to this is if the flash is in Manual setting AND also set to fractional power via flash unit controls (when off the camera) or by the camera controls (when mounted on the camera).

If the flash fires in full power when in ETTL mode, there is some connectivity issue which prevents the flash from getting a command from the camera. Intermittant connectivity can be responsible for this behavior...I have taken consecutive shots with camera and flash mounted on a tripod, pressed the shutter release 10 times and gotten random shots among the ten to be overexposed because the ETTL command (for some oddball reason) did not get through!

Pitter wrote in post #15631250
I have owned a 580 EX ll for about a year with a 7D. It is the version with the pointy contacts. I have had occaisional problems with it where it turns on in TTL mode and I'd have to remove and replace the batteries and remove and replace the unit on the mounting plate in order to get it to open in ETTL mode. Always solvable though with some fiddling. Now however I have a serious problem. The flash will only fire one or two times out of ten (allowing adequate recycle time) even though it's screen is on and shows no errors. Doesn't matter what camera shooting mode, M, Av etc., ETTL or ETTL High Speed. I have tried the usual; remove, replace the unit on the camera, remove replace the (fresh) batteries and so on. It has been used almost daily for much of that year. Could it just be worn out? Any ideas? Thanks.

It may be that the foot of the flash has some loose wires. I had a similar problem last year with one of my 580EXIIs. It was about 1-2 years old. It was either going at full power or not firing at all. But when fired remotely, using an ST-E2, the flash worked perfectly every time. I sent it in to Canon. It turns out that some of the wires at the foot of the flash had come loose. You may have a similar problem.

I have 2 x 580ex2 for over 4 years and other than the pointy contact issue, I have not had any other problems.

Well I sent it to Canon for repair and was told the flash bulb was burned out.

I've had that TTL problem come up every now and then..... But my issue has arrive whether I'm shooting with the 5D or the 5DMII and it's done it with the 550EX, the 580EX and the 580EXII..... Like I said, it's very rare, but it seems to always do it at a wedding just when I need the flash to be working at it's best, lol..... But now I have the 1DsMII and the 5DMII and 4 of the 580EXII and soon plan to upgrade to two 5DMIII and four 600EX and hopefully I'll never experience that problem again.....

This has been a problem with the 580EXII and somewhere on this forum there is a pictorial showing how to take apart and repair the light. This can be one of two problems. The first one is that not the actual mount but a place further in the speed light there are three or four screws that can come loose and cause this problem, what is required is tightening them up but you have to take apart a lot to do it. I started this process on mine and couldn't even get the first set of screws loose, so I took it to my local repair shop. They confirmed that this can happen but told me they won't touch it because as many as are affected by this, there are just as many that have a defective circuit board and the shop sends all of these speedlights with this problem to Canon. The shops/Canon charges would amount to $175.00. I didn't bother since I don't use the light that much. Today I put mine on the camera and shot about a hundred shots using it for fill light, two stops under and three stops under and it never switched over to TTL. The one time that I had this problem, I was photographing a friends wedding and noticed it right away, at that time I would turn off and turn on the light or turn it off and take it off the camera, put it back on and it would work fine again for a little while. Today my hope is that it's like sometimes a computer is acting weird so we shut it down for awhile and when it's rebooted it works. At least that was something we did in the earlier days of personal computers. Take from this what you want, it's just my experience and I'm certainly no technician.

I've had my 580EX for over 5 yrs now and recently had an issue where it wasn't firing. I checked the screen on the flash and noticed that what ever mode I changed it to, it kept blinking repeatedly, had never done that before. Last week I tried it out again and worked fine so not sure what happened. Anybody experience this issue? Is my 580EX dieing?

mgnike1 wrote in post #15994722
I've had my 580EX for over 5 yrs now and recently had an issue where it wasn't firing. I checked the screen on the flash and noticed that what ever mode I changed it to, it kept blinking repeatedly, had never done that before. Last week I tried it out again and worked fine so not sure what happened. Anybody experience this issue? Is my 580EX dieing?

If you pull out the 14mm diffusion screen in bounce mode, the display blinks. Could it be that?