Canon 580EX-II and the off camera cord (sync speed)

does anyone have other suggestions for non-Canon brand cables?

Promaster makes a pretty good TTL cable. About the same length as the Canon, with a threaded metal bushing in the upper end to screw it onto your bracket. Mine has seen a fair amount of use with no issues.

Since they're only sold in local camera shops, it might cost you just as much as a Canon cord purchased online.

@euge.lee
The 580 EX II PC jack and foot assembly can be re-wired, and the PC jack can be replaced with a mini or sub-mini jack to match other previously modded flash units so it becomes a true 2-way port to connect to a transmitter while the flash is in the hot shoe (if desired) or to connect to a receiver when the flash is in the Manual-Master mode, both of which were disabled by Canon in production.

@JeratBP
The other off brand OCC's are indeed a little less $, but the build quality is a lot less.

@cdifoto
The metal foot and the rubber gasket on the OC-E3 is indeed nice, if your camera also has the weather sealing. The metal foot on the camera end of the OC-E3 is not the section that usually take a lot of stress, and should something break, from an engineering point of view, I would rather it be the plastic wings of the foot of the Off Camera Cord, than ripping the hot shoe off the top of my camera. The 4 screws holding the shoe to the camera are less that 0.25 inches long, and have a very fine thread. (I have had to glue and tighten many hot shoes for photogs as they loosen over the years.) The OC-E3 does have a metal threaded insert in the flash end, but the plastic foot still has the weak wings with the spring slot that is prone to breakage.

If you tend to slide the flash end into a mounting shoe on a bracket, as opposed to rigidly attaching it though the threaded mounting hole in the bottom, then a dummy metal foot ($10 or so) can be screwed into the bottom of the flash end of either Off Camera Cord (OCC-2 or OC-E3). This will save a lot of aggravation, and prevent broken plastic feet.

cdifoto wrote in post #4083051
Oh and stated sync speeds aren't always the max you can get away with, as you've discovered.

I find this really astonishing. I always took the statistic as fact. Might the distance the light has to travel to the subject and back effect the sync speed ?

Reefbone wrote in post #4088256
I find this really astonishing. I always took the statistic as fact. Might the distance the light has to travel to the subject and back effect the sync speed ?

At 186,282 miles per second, light would travel about 745 miles in 1/250 second. It might have some bearing if you were fill-flashing a shot of the moon.

The real reason there is some lattitude on X-sync speed is to allow for the duration of the flash itself. The first shutter curtain opens, the flash turns on, the flash turns off, then the second curtain begins to close.

Using battery flash units at low power settings will give you extremely short flash durations and therefore allow for a slightly faster sync speed than specified.

Curtis N wrote in post #4088365
At 186,282 miles per second, light would travel about 745 miles in 1/250 second. It might have some bearing if you were fill-flashing a shot of the moon.

Well gaullllll- Y! Dat is fast.

What 'bout fill flash on Mt Munchmore? Hows 'bout then ?