Oh darn, I broke my 580EXII.

So I was in a new school during an orientation week, and everyone was very enthusiastic. I had a thick acrylic board mounted to my flash via velcro, which proved to be too study. I was holding the camera with a hand-grip at waist level, flash pointed to my right. My friend ran past me, collided with my acrylic board, and the main flash was torn off the hotshoe plastic part (the one with hotshoe + 4 screws).

Thank God that only 1 plastic part broke (or maybe 2) and one wire (the blue one) got severed at one end. Really thankful that not all wires got severed like many people.

I'll be bringing it to CSC tomorrow for a repair. Hopefully it won't cost too much (still under warranty, but damages aren't covered, right?).

Oh, pics later.

i guess my paper-only rule is proving itself useful O_o

well, i just always used paper since the 283 feet seem kinda cheap

If Canon wants to charge you more than $50, you should order the part from these guys, and do it yourself: http://www.uscamera.co​m/cy2-4220.htm

^ not sure if this is the case with all their parts, but when I bought my daughter's XT with a grip, the original owner had lost the battery door. i went to UScamera and the door was 18.80 plus shipping. I called canon, and they had the door for 9.95, plus $5 shipping. they told me it would be 3-5 days, it was at my house the next day.

just my experience, not saying this is always the case though.

CSC's closed for the weekend, so I'll drop by on monday. Darn shame it broke, though. I was 5 minutes away from going out of school.

While your repairing you can replace the crappy PC sync with a 3.5mm jack, I have been meaning to do that for a while now, just never got to it...

Could this have been avoided if it would have had a metal connection, such as the 430ex II? I'm contemplating getting the 430ex or ex II and was wondering if the metal connection is worth the extra $60. That would be the only thing that sounds worth the extra jingle.

The OP's flash is a 580EXII so it has the same metal shoe as the 430EXII. Unfortunately the part that appears to have broken is the same plastic assembly as on the 430EX and the 580EX.

I didn't realize this flash had the same metal connection. In that case, maybe it's better for the connection to break than the assembly as shown?

I just broke my 580 as well. I ordered the UScamera part for $50. While it's in the mail, I superglued the broken piece together.

I don't know about others, but I dropped my 50D+17-40+580II+OC-E3+bracket from waist level onto a concrete floor covered with tiles. It only cost me $50 to fix and I can't complain about that.

HHmm maybe you can go this route.
http://www.flashzebra.​com/canon580ex_footass​embly.shtml

scorpio that will only work on the 580 mk I. But it's the same general idea.

My bad..You are 100% correct Tim

I got the foot only from US Camera for my 430EX. It was $11 and I received it in just a couple of days.