When does 580EX zoom for 1.6x digital cameras?

I just rented a 580EX flash. Last night, I mounted it on my 30D with a Tamron

17-50mm/2.8 lens. I printed the flash manual off of eosdoc.com. In the manual,

it mentioned an icon on the LCD panel that indicates the flash is zooming in

to account for the 1.6x crop factor. I did not see this icon. Is the fact that

I am using a 3rd party lens preventing the zooming capability for the crop

factor? I would have thought that is was a function only of the camera,

irrespective of the lens. Does anyone have real knowledge of what's going on?

 

Thanks in advance,

Larry

Is custom function 11 on or off? (page 28 in the manual)

I was just playing with this a little more Larry. It looks like the information is sent from the camera to the flash when the camera is turned on or when the shutter is pressed half way. So, if the camera's on, you connect the flash and then turn on the flash, the flash will not auto-zoom until you press the shutter half way. This is true even with no lens attached. Hope that helps.

Larry,

The zoom function my not work with the 3rd party lenses. Also, the button on the right (zoom button), will affect this operation. You can set a specific zoom say 105 with your lens wide open to 17, this setting would affect the zoom feature.

Hi, I`m using the Tamron 17 50 2.8, Sigma 15 30, 24 70 2.8 & Tokina 19 35 as well as canon lenses on 20d`s, the 550ex zooms with all ok 580 should be no different AFAIK, if you bounce flash the flash defaults to 50mm and then you`ll need to manually set the head.

 

HTH