580ex II issue..

I wonder if anyone can help me with this one...


Last night, I was shooting some water drops with my 580ex II. The flash was going high speed, but I was giving it a good amount of time to cool down. Today when I tried it again, the flash would only go off every 4-5 frames of the camera. If I press the 'pilot' button a really fast, the flash will go every time, but not any more either on the hotshoe or with the ST-E2...

Has anyone seen this before?

Are your batteries low ?

Are you in ETTL or in manual?

Tried with 2 freshly charged set of batteries. Tried on manual and ETTL...

What are your settings then? What flash power

I assume you had the flash on HSS last night. Is it on HSS today? Simple thing to miss. Also, look at your batteries.

Settings are all the same as last night. I don't want to think about getting new batteries :S Mind, I've had them for a few years now, but 2 sets? Seems a bit odd...

The pilot button doesn't use the full power so the faster recycle time. Sounds to me like battery problem. If you really want to see if it's the battery or not, then instead of popping those rechargeable batteries, you might want to pop in new standard alkaline batteries. Those rechargeable batteries are not really reliable due to rather fast self-discharge behavior.

SYS wrote in post #7581610
The pilot button doesn't use the full power so the faster recycle time. Sounds to me like battery problem. If you really want to see if it's the battery or not, then instead of popping those rechargeable batteries, you might want to pop in new standard alkaline batteries. Those rechargeable batteries are not really reliable due to rather fast self-discharge behavior.

Hmmmm, that sucks. I recharged both sets today just to make sure it wasn't a battery problem. Could the batteries be end-of-life?

SurplusCorn wrote in post #7581618
Hmmmm, that sucks. I recharged both sets today just to make sure it wasn't a battery problem. Could the batteries be end-of-life?

Nothing good lasts forever....same goes for rechargeable batteries

SurplusCorn wrote in post #7581618
Hmmmm, that sucks. I recharged both sets today just to make sure it wasn't a battery problem. Could the batteries be end-of-life?

It depends on how long you've "recharged" your rechargeables. If they were conventional NiMHs, then they do get affected with memory issues with many cycles of recharging them. If that sounds like what your rechargeables have gone through, then that might explain. However, it'd be quite unusual that "just recharged" batteries would have such weak output unless they're really ready to die. One way of finding this out, pop in some new alkalines and see whether the recycle time has improved.

By the way, Energizer NiMHs gotta be the worst of any conventional rechargeables....

Providing I need new ones, what's a good replacement? Eneloops?

SurplusCorn wrote in post #7581737
Providing I need new ones, what's a good replacement? Eneloops?

Absolutely. No doubt about it. It is the king of all rechargeable NiMHs right now until some other brand with better technology comes along to dethrone it.

+1 on the eneloops!
You can get them pretty cheap at costco

SYS wrote in post #7581610
The pilot button doesn't use the full power so the faster recycle time. Sounds to me like battery problem. If you really want to see if it's the battery or not, then instead of popping those rechargeable batteries, you might want to pop in new standard alkaline batteries. Those rechargeable batteries are not really reliable due to rather fast self-discharge behavior.

Actually, in Manual mode the flash power will vary with the set level when using the Pilot button to fire. In ETTL mode it does use reduced power when fired by the Pilot button.

As others have suggested, using a set of new alkalines to test is a good idea. If the flash mounted on camera w/ new alkalines installed & set to 1/128 power in Manual mode (or in ETTL mode firing the camera at a bright or highly reflective target) can't keep up then it's unlikely the problem is due to the flash being 'power starved.'

Of course under these settings you'll likely be getting underexposed frames, but it will serve to tell just how rapidly your 580 can fire on-camera. (Set the lens to manual focus to avoid perturbing the results by the AF hunting for lock.)

George