580EX II issues at wedding

[mattlaudergallery]

Hi all,

 

I shot a wedding over the weekend as the backup for a mate. I have a Canon 1ds

Mrk II, 24-70mm f2.8 and the 580EX II flash. During the wedding I found a few

problems with the flash.

 

1. It would change from ETTL to TTL and the flash power changed. To fix I had to

turn my system off and removed the flash and reconnected and it was fine.

 

2. I was shooting at 1/30th of a sec at f4 with the flash and when the lights

dropped for the wedding dance the camera flash wouldn't operate. When the lights

turned back on the flash worked fine again.

 

I plan to get the Blue Crane Digital DVD: Understanding the Canon Speedlite

580EX/430EX by Tim Mantoani to give me a better understanding of the flash I have.

 

Also while I am asking... when I was shooting at higher shutter speeds 1/800 and

up at times I was getting the right exposure but at times the top of my portrait

shots or the left hand side of my vertical shots had a bright 1 or 2 stop fringe

on the image. Im guessing it is a shutter sync issue... why did it happen and

how can it be avoided.

 

Cheers

 

Matt

[picturesque]

1. This has been reported with the 580EX II. It is because the contacts and flash pins lose proper contact. It could be tightening your hot shoe plate can help, but then again, it might just be the flash. This is a warranty issue that you need to take care of right away. Send it in.

 

2. This might have been coincidental. The flash is designed to shut down when it "senses" you are in danger of overheating your flash. When the lights are higher, you are probably using 'less' flash? In any case, if you were bouncing a lot and using your flash at close to maximum output, shooting frames in fairly quick succession, the flash can shut down. This is in the manual.

 

You should not be 'able' to shoot at 1/800 with the flash on, except if you enabled high speed sync, and the flash should have performed in high speed sync. Was this when the flash went into TTL? You will see the shutter blades when syncing above 1/250th unless you have high speed sync working properly. High speed sync will also reduce your guide number.

[cabbiinc]

Did you have the 24-70 lens on when the bright fringe showed up? That wide angle lens may have been flaring off of your flash or another light source.

 

I dont know about the flash not firing or not using eTTL. I havent bought the 580... yet.