D80: Sigma EF-500 wireless settings?

[teru]

<P>Has anyone been able to find the settings to get the Sigma EF-500 to work

wirelessly with the D80? I took my Sigma EF-500 DG Super NA-iTTL to have it

upgraded with D80 compatible firmware and it works perfectly well as a hotshoe

flash, but in CSM i-TTL wireless mode it underexposes:

 

<P>Hotshoe (with bounce card):

<P><IMG

SRC="http://images4.fotop.net/albums2/teruphoto/D80/Sigma_0446_hotshoe.jpg">

 

<P>Wireless:

<P><IMG

SRC="http://images4.fotop.net/albums2/teruphoto/D80/Sigma_0454_wireless.jpg">

 

<P>I've set my Sigma on slave mode (the big lightning, 3 dashes, and smaller

lightning), channel C0. This is the same setting that worked with my D70. On my

D80, the Built-in, Group A and Group B are all set to TTL and channel is set to

3. I've tried different settings but this is the only combination that makes

the Sigma fire when the D80's flash fires.

[mawz]

NA-iTTL stands for Not Actually i-TTL.

 

The solution is to get an i-TTL flash and quit dealing with Sigma's inability to make a flash that actually talks the protocol it claims to.

[frank_skomial]

Adam said it all!

 

Teru,

just read your Sigma flash user's manual and it explains a bit, or hides a lot.

E.g. it instructs you to place your Sigma in the hot shoe on the camera, so the flash will read camera settings, then you possibly can remove the Sigma from the camera shoe and use it as a remote flash.

 

But what happens if your camera is in any automated mode, and it changes setting due to lighing condition?, or you changed setting yourself ? Your remote Sigma will still remember the old camera setting taken at the time when it was sitting in the camera shoe.

 

Has Sigma improved on it, since I tried it perhaps 2 years ago ? - possibly, but seems not so.

 

The Sigma NA-iTTL is just a "half-cooked" and very bad implementation of some advanced Nikon iTTL protocol features. The Metz flash iTTL implementation has more severe limitations, but at least you would know that, and would not even try and waste your time. Metz is even more constraining and not even close to what people are experiencing with original Nikon flashes iTTL/CLS system performance.

[teru]

<I>E.g. it instructs you to place your Sigma in the hot shoe on the camera, so the flash will read camera settings, then you possibly can remove the Sigma from the camera shoe and use it as a remote flash. </I>

 

<P>I tried that method already to no avail.

 

<P>To be fair to Sigma, I think this was Nikon's doing. I was able to use wirelessly flash perfectly with my D70 and now all of the sudden things have changed.

 

<P>D70 + Sigma wireless

<P><IMG SRC="http://imagesl.fotop.net/albums2/teruphoto/20060610/May_2465.jpg">

 

<P>Seems that everytime Nikon releases a new camera, they always alter just enough so that 3rd party equipment becomes incompatible. Can't really blame them though. Sigh...if I can't figure it out, I'll probably get a SB-600 and hope that the Sigma can still be used as a secondary light.

[teru]

Finally figured it out. Apparently, Group A needs to be set to +1.7 ~ +2 comp when the Built-in is set to TTL. Either that or set the Built-in to -- and Group A to TTL, 0 comp.

 

Here's the full procedure:

 

1. Set the D80 to TTL flash (CSM menu 22).

2. Place the flash on the hotshoe.

3. Turn on the flash.

4. Half press the shutter. The flash's LCD should light up.

5. Press mode until the TTL slave mode appears (TTL Lightning --- lightning). Make sure that the LCD is still lit, otherwise you might not be able to access this mode. Using selection, set the channel to C3. So what you should see is:

 

TTL Lightning --- lightning

1 C3 SL

 

6. Turn off the flash.

7. Take the flash off of the camera.

8. Turn the flash back on. The red light should be flashing.

9. Set the D80's flash to Commander (CSM menu 22). Choose one of the following:

 

A) Built-in TTL 0

Group A TTL 1.7

Group B TTL 0

Channel 3

 

B) Built-in --

Group A TTL 0

Group B TTL 0

Channel 3

 

Happy shooting!