580 to replace the 550?

I'm aware of those illustrations in the manual, but in practice (especially when there are no walls or ceiling for the waves to bounce off from), using a 550/580 has a visible advantage. I haven't touched my st-e2 in a while because of it. Our mileage may vary, but that's my experience with the ST-E2.

As a matter of fact, Chuck Westfall himself said in his website:

**

There's another thread in photo.net that mentioned about about it as well.

I appreciate your inputs though, thanks for the link.

Hmmm....actually, if that's true, then the right decision may be to get the 580 and keep the 550!

theveed wrote in post #9233310
I'm aware of those illustrations in the manual, but in practice (especially when there are no walls or ceiling for the waves to bounce off from), using a 550/580 has a visible advantage. I haven't touched my st-e2 in a while because of it. Our mileage may vary, but that's my experience with the ST-E2.

As a matter of fact, Chuck Westfall himself said in his website:

**

There's another thread in photo.net that mentioned about about it as well.

I appreciate your inputs though, thanks for the link.

I still stand by what I said earlier re the visible light of the flash master vs the IR light of the ST-E2 but I will reserve further comment until I hear back from Chuck. There are several comments made in that old thread (from 2001) which I do not agree with and I wrote Chuck about them. Stay tuned.

Please do update us, Leo, thanks

PacAce wrote in post #9235187
I still stand by what I said earlier re the visible light of the flash master vs the IR light of the ST-E2 but I will reserve further comment until I hear back from Chuck. There are several comments made in that old thread (from 2001) which I do not agree with and I wrote Chuck about them. Stay tuned.

Interesting...any update yet?
Thanks.

sml wrote in post #9254965
Interesting...any update yet?
Thanks.

Not yet, unfortunately.

theveed wrote in post #9223214
In addition to what they've posted the following are good enough reasons to upgrade:

1) Much quieter "whine" noise.
2) The head swivels beyond 90deg to the right.
3) In-cam menu controls
4) Smaller size...

Still playing around with the idea of getting the 580EXII to replace (actually...to add to!) my 550EX.
Just wondering..."in-cam menu controls." With my 40d (and 10d before that) some of the in camera flash controls are greyed out. (Also, are they also greyed out with the 5d...which will likely be my next camera body?)
Are they actually usable and accessible from the camera with the 580? That alone could convince me!!
Thanks.

The 5D like the 10D, didn't have the in-camera flash menu. The 1D Mark III was the first to feature that menu. The flashes released since the 580EX and 430EX support that menu.

jacuff wrote in post #9267123
The 5D like the 10D, didn't have the in-camera flash menu. The 1D Mark III was the first to feature that menu. The flashes released since the 580EX and 430EX support that menu.

Thanks....but what about the 40d and the 5dMkII...do the in camera controls work the 580? That is, does the flash unit also make a difference in terms of whether those functions work with those camera models?

The 40D and 5D Mark II were released after the 1D Mark III, so yes. The flash unit does make a difference in whether certain functions can be set by the camera via a menu. It doesn't affect whether you set the function on the flash unit itself.

jacuff wrote in post #9267200
The 40D and 5D Mark II were released after the 1D Mark III, so yes. The flash unit does make a difference in whether certain functions can be set by the camera via a menu. It doesn't affect whether you set the function on the flash unit itself.

Thanks!

PacAce wrote in post #9235187
I still stand by what I said earlier re the visible light of the flash master vs the IR light of the ST-E2 but I will reserve further comment until I hear back from Chuck. There are several comments made in that old thread (from 2001) which I do not agree with and I wrote Chuck about them. Stay tuned.

Well, Chuck and I had a couple of email exchanges regarding his comment about the ST-E2 and in the end, neither one of us was able to change the other's mind. And he left it at, to paraphrase what he said, "we'll have to agree to disagree".

So, since I didn't get anywhere there, let me present my arguments regarding the part of his comment that I did not agree with. Below is a quote posted by theveed. And the parts I don't agree with is highlight in red. The part I question is highlighted in orange.

1) In the quote, it is stated that the flash unit of the ST-E2 is low powered (compared to the 550EX flash). Well, it is and there's no denying that. However, since the ST-E2 is not used to illuminate the subject like the 550EX does, there really isn't a need for it to be high-powered. It just needs to be powerful enough to emit a command flash that's equal in intensity as the command flash emitted by the 550EX.

2) It's also stated that the near-IR filter restricts the intensity of the command flash such that the ST-E2's range, in effect, is reduced to half that of the 550EX. I don't agree with this statement simply because it doesn't make too much sense considering that the slave flashes also have a near-IR filter placed in front of the wireless sensor. In other words, if you do use the 550EX as the master which emits the command signal in the full visible and near-IR spectrum, by the time the signal reaches the slave sensor, the near-IR filter of the slave would have blocked off all of the visible light (other than the part of the spectrum closest to the near-IR spectrum, i.e the red frequencies) anyway. Or, to put it another way, what the slave sensor sees would be the same light spectrum that the ST-E2 emits.

With the ST-E2 as the master, we're talking about two layers of near-IR filter vs the one layer, i.e. that of the slave, when the 550EX is used as the master. But does that mean that the intensity of the command signal will be decreased by half? No, not according to tests I did (explained below).

Using my 580EX as the master, I went outdoors to determine its 'center line" maximum range. I was able to get a maximum distance of 80 feet. The test was done in the late afternoon with overcast skies so the sun wasn't out but that should not matter for establishing a baseline for comparison purposes.

I then taped (all around the sides) a Nikon SG-3IR IR panel over the flash head to simulate the IR panel of the ST-E2. I repeated the test and got a range of 65 to 70 feet. So, yes, the IR panel did reduce the range of the flash slightly but not as much as half the distance. When I presented this observation to Chuck, his response was, "Sorry to be blunt, but so what? The performance of the Nikon piece has no bearing n the performance of the ST-E2."

OK, that's fair. Just because a Nikon component works so efficiently doesn't mean that a Canon component does also.

So, I got myself an ST-E2 and repeated the same experiment as above. Guess what? The ST-E2 gave me a maximum distance of 70 feet under the same conditions. Granted, it's not the 80 feet I got with the 580EX but 70 feet is not anyhing to sneeze at either, especially outdoors. Heck that's a tad farther than my FlexTT5 can do with the 580EX II as the slave without the AC5 shield.

This was a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I've been waiting for a day when I can test the ST-E2 outdoors with the sun out. I got a chance to do that this afternoon, around 1:30, in my back yard. WIth the sun behind and to the right of the "model" I place a 580EX slave in front and to the left of the model. I first tested the ST-E2 from a distance of 15 feet (master-to-slave distance), which, according to Chuck, is close to the maximum range of the ST-E2 outdoors. There was no problem triggering the slave from this distance so I moved back to 20 feet. Again, no issues there. So, I moved back to 30 feet. This is the range that's documented in the ST-E2 manual. Again, the slave fired without hesitation. I continued moving back until I reach the fence along the boundary of my property. That's a distance of more than 60 feet from the slave to the master and the ST-E2 still fired the slave without any problem. I fired off a couple of shots to make sure that it fired consistently at that distance and it did.

So, as far as I'm concerned, the ST-E2 performed almost as well. distance-wise, as any of the 5xxEX flashes, indoors or out, and as documented in the ST-E2 manual. And just so there's no misunderstanding, we're just talking about the working distance of the ST-E2 here.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

THAT is a pretty compelling argument, Leo.
Impressive work.

As a side note, I have no measures to back it up...and I've never used it outside. But, my ST-E2 has never failed to trigger the flash. And that includes with two different brand flash brackets (where the manufacturer's recommendation was to avoid using the ST-E2) that position the flash above the unit.
Another side note...after posting this topic, I decided to wait for the next generation of 580 (or whatever Canon calls it!) flash to come out. I saw no pressing need to replace my existing flash.

Thanks for your work on this topic!!