Flash Intermittently not firing

I was using my Speedlite 580EXII on my 5D2 last night at an event, for some strange reason it wasn't firing during the whole occasion, once I had left and checked the exif information and to my surprise, the flash hadn't fire throughout the event, the pilot light had gone out so I had assumed that the batteries had run out of steam, so changed them, and still the same problems of having intermittent flash

Yet when I was on my way home, it started to work again without any reason for it to do so. I had continually check whether the Speedlite was working during the small intervals I had, it was working

Can anyone tell me when the flash wouldn't work apart dirt residue on the hot shoe contacts?

If you keep your non-viewfinder eye open as well, you have an ongoing check of whether the flash fired or not.

Whortleberry wrote in post #16382498
If you keep your non-viewfinder eye open as well, you have an ongoing check of whether the flash fired or not.

Unfortunately, I'm a leftie so can't do that I know I should of checked after some of the shots

Maybe the speedlite just wasn't pushed all the way into the hot shoe, so the contacts weren't aligning. Just guessing.

When you say intermittent, do you mean that if you shot 10 shots, every other would not trigger the flash? Or do you mean that for long stretches it wouldn't work and then start working for long stretch's of time? I'm wondering if there was any change to the state of the camera/flash that might have caused it to work again.

frugivore wrote in post #16382533
Maybe the speedlite just wasn't pushed all the way into the hot shoe, so the contacts weren't aligning. Just guessing.

When you say intermittent, do you mean that if you shot 10 shots, every other would not trigger the flash? Or do you mean that for long stretches it wouldn't work and then start working for long stretch's of time? I'm wondering if there was any change to the state of the camera/flash that might have caused it to work again.

No, not that, I know that the speedlite has a ten shot then it won't fire, but on all the photos, not one shots apart from the test shots did the flash fire

I was at an event the previous day where it worked continuously, I had put this on my 50D, it worked all the time, I know this could sound like a camera situation, where there could be dirt residue on the hotshoe

RichSoansPhotos wrote in post #16382500
Unfortunately, I'm a leftie so can't do that I know I should of checked after some of the shots

So am I and I've never had a problem. It even works looking down into a Bronica waist level finder. You don't see the flash on the subject but that's not necessary. You can certainly be aware of whether the flash fired.