580EX Malfunctioning?

This past Saturday my wife and I threw a birthday party for my son at a local roller skating place. Knowing that the place is very dark, I took my 580EX and mounted it on my 20D. With about 20 of his friends and his 2nd grade classmates in attendance, I was just going nuts trying to play the host, videotaping, as well as taking pictures so I'm kinda fuzzy on details as to what exactly happened. But one thing for sure is that, just as my son was about to blow out the candles on his birthday cake, something happened with the 580EX. Right after taking the picture, thinking that something's wrong, I looked at the LCD to review the picture, but all I saw was nothing but nearly total dark image. I took another picture, and again nothing but a dark image. I then looked at the 580EX flash's LCD to see that the green power light was gone and the "0.5 0.7 1 1.5...m" line at the bottom was constantly blinking.

Thinking that the batteries needed replacing, I came home and just forgot about it until today. Instead of replacing the flash with new batteries, I thought I'll just try the flash again with the same old batteries. To my surprise, I found that everything's back to normal working condition. So I'm wondering what could have happened that ruined that critical candle blowing shot. It's not the case that I was shooting too rapidly without having given the flash to regenerate its power in between the shots or anything like that.

What had caused the bottom line of the flash's LCD to constantly blink and suddenly stopped working? I did once send this flash unit back to Canon for a repair a few months ago, and I had used the flash sparingly since....

Any clue, anyone?

Sorry to hear about the "mishap" -- nothing like ruined birthday pics...

Could the temperature changes caused the flash to work that way? It could also have been moisture. It will be a pain to send it in to Canon for repairs if the problem does not occur regularly enough for them to diagnose.

dgcorner wrote in post #2710696
Sorry to hear about the "mishap" -- nothing like ruined birthday pics...

Could the temperature changes caused the flash to work that way? It could also have been moisture. It will be a pain to send it in to Canon for repairs if the problem does not occur regularly enough for them to diagnose.

I doubt that the temperature changes had caused the problem as the weather that particular day wasn't all that cold (unlike freezing temp today!!). But since I'm totally clueless, I'll take any theories at this point.

Was your 20D able to autofocus?

I know that with the 5D if there is not enough light for the camera to focus, the shutter won't actuate. The autofocus will measure areas of contrast on the "target" and if these are insufficient it won't get a focus lock and won't take the picture. This may sound like a dumb question, but in all the confusion and noise, did your camera actually "snap" the picture?

sapearl wrote in post #2710843
Was your 20D able to autofocus?

I know that with the 5D if there is not enough light for the camera to focus, the shutter won't actuate. The autofocus will measure areas of contrast on the "target" and if these are insufficient it won't get a focus lock and won't take the picture. This may sound like a dumb question, but in all the confusion and noise, did your camera actually "snap" the picture?

Yes, the camera did take the picture, and that's how I was able to view it on the 20D LCD. Because of the chaotic atmosphere, I'm not too sure, but the fact that the camera took the photo but the image came out in near total dark, my assumption is that the flash didn't go off. But what baffles me is that I wasn't shooting in rapid succession. And why would the LCD on the flash unit keep blinking?

SYS wrote in post #2710882
Yes, the camera did take the picture, and that's how I was able to view it on the 20D LCD. Because of the chaotic atmosphere, I'm not too sure, but the fact that the camera took the photo but the image came out in near total dark, my assumption is that the flash didn't go off. But what baffles me is that I wasn't shooting in rapid succession. And why would the LCD on the flash unit keep blinking?

According to Page 49 of the manual (Under Troubleshooting), the flash distance scale bars will blink if the flashhead has been tilted down to -7 degrees for macro or closeup flash.

If the entire LCD panel is blinking, it means the wide panel has been pulled out (even a little bit).

This doesn't answer why you got NO flash, though. That might have been due to it not being completely seated in the hotshoe or not tightened down.

Lens cap on? Flash head tilted down/card pulled out part way?

cdi-ink.com wrote in post #2712782
Lens cap on?

LOL... didn't think of that one.

I think your first instinct was right, and your batteries were too low to charge the flash. After resting overnight, they recovered enough to work, and that very soon you will experience the same problem. Or not and something else is wrong.

TheSteveMadden wrote in post #2712766
According to Page 49 of the manual (Under Troubleshooting), the flash distance scale bars will blink if the flashhead has been tilted down to -7 degrees for macro or closeup flash.

If the entire LCD panel is blinking, it means the wide panel has been pulled out (even a little bit).

This doesn't answer why you got NO flash, though. That might have been due to it not being completely seated in the hotshoe or not tightened down.

No, the cap was off as the problem happened after a bunch of shots were successfully taken.

Let's say that I accidentally tilted the flash head down to -7 degrees and activated the distance scale bars to blink. (I do remember tilting the head down on few occassions when bouncing off the ceiling wasn't appropriate). Obviously the flash is "thinking" that I want macro so it adjusts the amount of light output, but in reality I was standing several feet from my son. Is that why I got dark images? Seems like that's the only explanation as to what could have happened...

iof wrote in post #2712950
I think your first instinct was right, and your batteries were too low to charge the flash. After resting overnight, they recovered enough to work, and that very soon you will experience the same problem. Or not and something else is wrong.

Yes, that possibility did go through my head. I need to look at the manual again to find out if one of the symptoms of low batteries is the distance scale blinking....

It's gotta be either this or that I had accidentally tilted the head down -7. I'm VERY relieved by the good possibility that I'm dealing with a normal phenomenon and NOT something that I'll have to send it to the Canon repair.

When tilting it down, especially if you press it down to the stop, you will put backward pressure on the hot shoe mounting area. It might have caused a momentary contact misalignment.

Just pay attention and check the mount if it refuses to flash again.

You mentioned that this happened on the candle shot. I shoot a lot of birthdays and as soon as I see the cake coming I turn off my speedlite, go to ISO 1600, f/1.8-2.0 and 1/80-1/120 sec then quicky meter with the cake in front of them and adjust. You can get the most beautiful candle shots with no flash as long as you have a fast prime mounted. If i have control over it, I'll also dim/kill the lights. Shoot RAW as you'll need to dial the temperature down all the way - candles are quite warm. I pre-Focus on the back of the cake, as that will be close enough and af in low light is iffy (at least it was with the XT - the 30D should be better)

Here are some samples... These were all ISO1600 at f/2.5-f/2.8 and some of my first birthday shoots with my XT, but I've learned that a wider aperture and a little more shutter speed will lesses subject motion blur. I think flash would have killed the shot.

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Adorable girls Steve.

Thanks, Steve, for sharing your technique for shooting birthday cake scenes. You did very well, especially the first photo!

I usually do not like shooting with the flash (hence my ignorance of the 580EX! ), but I calculated that the f/2.8 of my 24-70 will push the ISO to 3200 given the dark environment of the roller skating arena, and even then I probably ended up with lots of blurred shots, so I resorted to using the flash. With 20 kids all over the cake, I knew I had to shoot from a distance, too. Over all, it was a great learning experience.

Thanks, cdi-ink

SYS, your f/2.8L should handle it. That first shot was with my 85 f/1.8 at f/2.8, 1/100 sec ISO 1600. Two of the three I took of her had motion blur, one severe, but I got lucky with this one. This has to be one of the most demanding shots due to the dim lighting, speed of the event and lack of do-overs. Now that I have my 30D, I'll have to see what H (ISO3200) can do.