off-camera cord

Hey all, is canon the only company to offer an off-camera cord for flashes or is there a generic brand that works just the same? I'd like to experiment with getting my 420ex off the camera, but at this point I don't want to shell out the $60 or whatever for the cord.

Nope - I've got a generic brand from Jessops, a camera chain here in the UK. Also has a longer cord than the canon which is primarily why I bought it...

Andy

$49.95 from B&H. Best price I could find. It hurt but mine arrived yesterday...with the bracket!

it's a shame it has to cost so much for what is seemingly some wires, seems like it could be done less expensively. But I'll definitely have to consider getting this, I can imagine that I could do some cool lighting by altering the lighting direction.

They charge for it because they can. Usually only people that are into photography will use them, so they will pay for them.
Personally, I want one, but am not going to fork out 85 cdn for one just yet, at least until i have greater demand for one.

andy, does that support the full E-TTL for the 430EX/580EX, or is it just a pc sync type extension? Also, how long is it? I want off camera, but the canon cord is pretty short (really only enough for mounting on an on-camera bracket)

I was wondering the same thing as philpereira

Is there an alternate way to use the flash off camera(while still supporting E-TTL), but with more than the 2ft of cable that comes with the adaptor? I know people on here have cut their wires and extended them, but I don't want to risk breaking the off shoe adaptor.

But if it comes to that, I just might have to

Use a wireless master and a slave set up if your looking for distance.

I'm told that the part of the off shoe cord that the flash mounts on breaks sometimes, you can see why, it's not the strongest looking thing. If you rely on this for your work you should probably have a backup, or as an emergency measure only shoot landscape so you don't get side shadow.

Wireless is great, the range is less outside but it still works well so long as you have line of sight of a few meters or so.

I'd rather have the cord snap if I dropped the flash rather than tear the shoe off the camera
(had that happen on a Konica autoreflex T)