540ez off camera?

I might as well do it that way, otherwise I have a wasted cord.

ryandavid__ wrote in post #4967046
correct.

Great, it's just a shame as you said that they are going for so much more these days. I would love to hear your experience with these and your Cactus Triggers when they arrive.

I had cactus triggers. The transmitter arrived DOA. I actually still have them. I unfortunately did all the Modding to the transmitter before I even test if it worked properly. I have a receiver that I am sure works fine and a DOA modded transmitter if anyone is interested. The Mod can be easily moved to another trigger.

red hot sheep wrote in post #4970042
Great, it's just a shame as you said that they are going for so much more these days. I would love to hear your experience with these and your Cactus Triggers when they arrive.

I've been using mine with Cactus triggers for quite a while without issue. I've had no misfires or no fires with the Canon. I have an old vivitar 728(full power only) that I direct wired to the cactus and it misfires(no fires) 1 out of 30-40 tries.(might be even fewer). I need to get a new receiver for one of the new 540's I picked up.

I also made an optical slave(diy I found a link to somewhere in these forums) and it only works in a dark room, so I will hotwire that to the old Vivtar as a background or hair light(and probably never even use it).

Dug

red hot sheep wrote in post #4970042
Great, it's just a shame as you said that they are going for so much more these days. I would love to hear your experience with these and your Cactus Triggers when they arrive.

I'll let you know how I get on, it should be mid-next week now, I'm still paranoid about this random company in Hong-Kong having my money, I'm sure i'll get over it when they arrive.

But for now, my problem lies here.

Ryan.

Well as an update the $39 flash I just got off ebay worked perfect.

I don't know why it didn't work for the original owner but it was in pretty much brand new condition.

Even came with a flash diffuser to put over the head.

So now I am fully setup for all manual off camera flash.

Ross

When I went to buy the 540ez from the guy, he said it looks like someone already sold it with a camera he was selling for him. Oh well. I will just have to look around for one.

EOS MAN1 wrote in post #4978281
When I went to buy the 540ez from the guy, he said it looks like someone already sold it with a camera he was selling for him. Oh well. I will just have to look around for one.

Ah, that's a shame. If you're anything like me, you should get one, there's something about having a canon that makes it feel better than the competition, haha. It's mainly the ergonomics, I guess, it just feels right.

metalman1010 wrote in post #4978275
Well as an update the $39 flash I just got off ebay worked perfect.

I don't know why it didn't work for the original owner but it was in pretty much brand new condition.

Even came with a flash diffuser to put over the head.

So now I am fully setup for all manual off camera flash.

Ross

If you pull out the diffuser, it zooms to the widest(18mm) coverage. It will only zoom in normal and bounce positions, not straight up.
Dug

Dermit wrote in post #4963625
As far as power goes it should be pretty close to the power of the 580. I believe Canon names their flashes based on the guide number. So a 580 has a number that is good for 58 meters, so if the names follow then the 540 would be good for 54 meters. Therefore the power would be pretty close.

Not 'good for 54 meters'...but "the GN in meters = 58". So if you shoot a subject at 5.3 meters (about 17') distance, you use about f/11. Using an f/1.4 lens, the 540EZ would be "good enough for subject up to 41.4 meters away"

Wilt wrote in post #4983494
Not 'good for 54 meters'...but "the GN in meters = 58". So if you shoot a subject at 5.3 meters (about 17') distance, you use about f/11. Using an f/1.4 lens, the 540EZ would be "good enough for subject up to 41.4 meters away"

Maybe he always shoots with this lens wide open ...

Or with that lens at ISO6400 ...

If you're still interested, I got my triggers through the post today (6/7 days for delivery, not bad at all), so far I've only had one 540ez wireless, but it works fine! I will have the second one up once I can be bothered to walk to the shop to get more AAs for my second 540, then we'll see if it there's any trouble with them. So far so good though.

I think it's about time I picked up some rechargable batteries.

Ryan.

I love my 540EZ, I think I may even like it better on the hotshoe than my Sigma 500 Super. It seems in manual mode my guesstimate on flash power is often more accurate than ETTL. Obviously its not great for candids snapped at various ranges constantly, but if you know you can keep your subject around a certain distance it works great.

The only thing I dont like about it is the lack of pc sync connector. Lets stop talking good about it though, you are driving up the ebay pricing!

Took this last week with a 540ez as main on camera right shot thru an umbrella as close as possible to subjects. Then a Sigma 500 about 3' to left of camera for fill in a small homeade softbox.