580 EX II: optically trigger with standard flash (not Canon ETTL)?

[gabriel_l1]

<p>OK, I've been researching this pretty thoroughly but I thought I'd at least ask here before giving up. Is there any way to trigger an off-camera 580EX II via standard optical flash? The speedlight would be in M mode of course.</p>

<p>You would think this would be possible—via a custom function, for example. The 580EX II has an optical receiver, and can be set as a slave in Canon's proprietary light-communication "wireless" mode. So clearly the only barrier is software, i.e., making the camera fire when it senses a normal old camera flash.</p>

<p>I realize this is taking a highly sophisticated flagship unit and trying to turn it into as dumb a manual optically-triggered flash as they get, but yes, that is in fact what I want. Yes, I know the 580 EX II has a PC Sync terminal that I can use to remotely trigger it via any number of means, but that seems silly if I can just get the thing to fire in response to a simple flash stimulus.</p>

<p>I believe I've already answered my question but I'll hope I'm wrong. Thanks for your time!</p>

[bobatkins]

<p>As far as I know there is no way to do this with an internal flash function. You could do it with an external optical trigger attached to the 580EX II of course.</p>

[gabriel_l1]

<p>Well, "as far as you know" is pretty far from where I'm standing, so I guess that calls it. Doesn't matter that much in any case; I can <em>virtually</em> always juggle my lighting/triggering equipment around to make everything fire. Thanks anyway Bob!</p>

[PuppyDigs]

<p>I've done it a few times with a Wein optical trigger. It's cheap and works fine if you're okay with M flash.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>It's probably not worth the trouble to re-engineer the thing. Just buy a Sonia optical slave off of fleabay for $10. You'll have to modify it, though, if your 580II triggers like my 550. Just peel the sticker off the back of the base unit, and you'll see a few diodes connecting the PC jacks. You'll want to bypass those. To do this, make a special soldering iron tip by wrapping the tip of your regular soldering iron with 12 ga wire, and then extending maybe 1" of the wire straight out. That's your working tip, which you can fit easily in the hole. Tin some fine wire before inserting it, and then tack it from terminal to terminal. Snip the end off with a tiny knife tip, and you're done! It's an easy operation, so long as you don't overheat the connectors. I replaced the sticker on the back of mine with one that says "550EX," so that I won't get it confused with the unmodified ones that I use with my Vivitars.</p>

[cabbiinc]

<p>http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/index2.html#slave<br>

8th paragraph down is in reference to what you're talking about:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Canon do not build any flash units specifically intended for use as studio equipment. However, you can buy hotshoe adapters - <a href="http://www.botzilla.com/photo/G1strobe.html" target="_blank">optical</a> or wired - to turn any flash you want into a slave... </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Which means that you just can't do what you think it should be able to do. Yeah, it'd be nice but you can't.</p>

<p><br /> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>a lot of people have reported problems with small optical slaves not being able to trigger Canon Speedlite flash units more than once without the flash being turned off and turned on again between each shot.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>From what I've read the 580EXII does not suffer from this problem, but if you had a flash that did you'd want one of <a href="http://www.flashzebra.com/products/0118/index.shtml">these</a> or <a href="http://www.flashzebra.com/products/0127/index.shtml">these</a> . Of course if you already own a 580EX then you could just buy a 420EX, 430EX, 550EX or another 580EX and fire them via your eTTL. There's also slave flashes made by Sigma and Metz, but honestly I'd skip the Sigma.<br /> <br>

<br /> </p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>To be clear, the "one shot only" problem is what my mod corrects. Tried and true.</p>

<p>Another economical slave rig is a Vivitar 285hv (under $100 new) on a Sonia optical slave base ($10 new). Honestly, my 550EX mostly gathers dust while I use my Vivitars. They're the way to go for manual, off-shoe flash.</p>

[gabriel_l1]

<p>Thanks everyone for the comments (and the lead on super-cheap optical triggers). I actually do have cheap manual-only flashes for off-camera work; my original question was more of a utilization issue, i.e., there are times that I have this "extra" flash (the 580 EX II) that I might want to incorporate into my lighting, and I was trying to figure out if it really was impossible without adding another piece of gear (however small and lightweight and cheap) to my bag. Simplify, simplify, simplify—you know the mantra.</p>

<p>As injustices go, this one is admittedly less than trivial and fantastically easy to solve. But there it is.</p>

<p>(EDIT) PS—lest anyone think otherwise, I have to admit that beyond this minor and highly specific annoyance, the 580 EX II really is a superb flash unit for Canon photographers. One of my best pieces of gear without doubt.</p>