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	Username   Password FM Forum Rules Canon SLRs, primes, and zooms lenses reviews FM Forums | Canon-mount SLRs | Join Upload & Sell    end    Archive 2012 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness

Jeff Kingston Offline • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #1 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness Am I just catching a bad bit of luck. I have been using the wireless flash control on the 7D for a few years. I set the camera mounted flash to "off" and have 3 remote flashes on a single channel with two ratios A for two and B for the third. And of course I set for ETTL and shoot with a manual setting. Get great results this way. But every so often, the flash control seems to have a brain fart and the flashes fire at far too much power and blow out the image. Some have said "this just happens" with the 7D. I can find no rhyme or reason for this to occur. Has anyone found a "cure" or fix? Today, I nearly 30% of the time the system blew out the image Jan 10, 2012 at 10:22 PM

omarlyn Offline • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #2 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness Bad communication…the 'optical' signal between flashes can be a bit 'glitchy'. Is this indoors or outdoors? How far apart are the flashes? Omar Jan 10, 2012 at 10:32 PM

Jeff Kingston Offline • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #3 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness I am shooting macros of wristwatches, with the watches in a light tent. The remote flashes are no more than 12" from the camera. I take great care to try and orient the flashes so that they have good position relative to the camera. Jan 10, 2012 at 10:38 PM

BrianO Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #4 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness When you say "camera mounted flash" do you mean the pop-up flash, or a flash in the hot shoe? If you're using a 580EX II on the camera, there's a known issue with the weather sealing on the flash foot sometimes causing the ETTL pins to lose contact with the ETTL disks on the hot shoe. When that happens, the flash will often fire at full power. The solution is to wiggle the flash a bit as you're mounting it on the camera, and then push it into the shoe a little more firmly than you otherwise might while flipping the locking lever. Recent 580EXs have redesigned pins that are less prone to not making contact. If yours are of different vintages, check the pins and use on the camera the one with pins that look like pointy rods, and the one(s) with pins that look like tiny popsicles for slaves. HTH. Jan 11, 2012 at 07:40 AM

Gochugogi Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #5 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness When in E-TTL mode, the master flash will intermittently default to manual operation and fire slaves at full power if the contacts are dirty or loose. Happens to me a few times a year and I clean off the funk with contact cleaner and all is well again. However if you're shooting in a light tent and using the same settings it's easier and more dependable to use both manual exposure and manual flash rather than E-TTL. Jan 11, 2012 at 08:27 AM

timbop Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #6 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness You have found what exactly what many of us found 2 years ago when we first got or 7d's and started using them the way they were advertised to work. As far as I know, a firmware fix came out after a few months - but that didn't fix it. I stopped following the threads thereafter because I gave up on it and use alienbee radio triggers instead. It requires a little bit of work to adjust the exposures, but with the cybercommander or other flashmeter that is over with quickly. Once you figure the exposure, as long as you don't move the flashes relative to where your subject is you can shoot all day without adjusting anything. You get the side benefit of having absolutely consistent exposures, as opposed to having to play with FEC for darker/brighter subjects Jan 11, 2012 at 01:30 PM

Jeff Kingston Offline • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #7 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness Of course the pop up flash is opened, however, I set it not to fire. I want only the three remote flashes to fire. So which contacts must I clean since none are exposed and there is nothing in the on camera shoe? Something is making the remotes go to full power, which is a pain in the sense that it prematurely fries the batteries. Jan 11, 2012 at 05:16 PM

Gochugogi Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #8 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness Cleaning the shoe contacts won't help if nothing is in the shoe. You have some other problem. I assumed you were using a ST-E2 or other master unit. I tried the 7D popup a few times and hated it and decided to stick to the ST-E2 and slaves. Jan 11, 2012 at 05:39 PM

timbop Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #9 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness Jeff Kingston wrote: ... Something is making the remotes go to full power, which is a pain in the sense that it prematurely fries the batteries. should I repeat myself? Jan 11, 2012 at 05:59 PM

BrianO Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #10 · 7D Wireless Flash Control Funkiness Jeff Kingston wrote: ...So which contacts must I clean since none are exposed and there is nothing in the on camera shoe? Oh, so you don't have a camera-mounted flash; that's not what you said in your first post. No, in this case there are no contacts to clean; something else is going on. Unusual that it's getting worse if your subject matter and composition haven't changed. Other than going to Manual flash power (which is very easy to do from the 7D's menus) I can't offer any solutions. Jan 11, 2012 at 07:10 PM

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