Could you and your elves please rethink the paradigm of hot shoe flash and come up with something better? I know this request is too late for this year, but heck if the elves start right away they might pull it off by next year. Here are some design suggestions.... Feel free to add yours....
1) Lose the hot shoe: First its a lousy mechanical connector. It might have been a good idea when flashes where tiny, but nowadays the #1 cause of broken flashes are hot shoe related: the flash slips out, or the stress on the base of the flash at the shoe causes it to break. Secondly, it positions the flash poorly. Lose the shoe, sell a decent flash bracket as part of your camera systems. If you build it they will come....
2) Lose the PC plug: Its an even worse mechanical connector than the hot shoe which loosens with repeated use and is nearly impossible to restore to optimal condition, even with a $20 conditioning tool.
3) Lose the wires, or at least make them optional: Look to the way Apple handles audio on its iMacs. Either an analog phone jack or optical TosLink connector can be plugged into the jack on the back of the computer, which is smart enough to figure out which is in play. Going optical would open new horizons for control and modularity. All the logic for controlling flash could be included in the camera CPUs and simply drive an LED connected to an optical port. Five different mechanical pins shouldn't be needed simply to fire and control a flash in the 21st Century. That's 19th century technology!!!
4) Make control digital, with an open source CODEC, preferably universal. Suggestion #3 makes this possible. Instead of sending coded digital optical signals to the slaves from the flash heads, send them via the modular optical flash interface port. Make the coding sequence open source and sit down with all the players in the camera / flash market and agree to a common, open, interface standard. The model here is the universal remote control for A/V equipment. Each brand has its own coding sequences, but the methodology is the same, allowing one remote to control many different brands and types of equipment.
5) Make control modular: Implementing the above suggestions would make remote triggering by wire, optical or radio trivial. All that would be needed is the appropriate plug in module which would then repeat the the coded digital control signals via wire, fiber optics, visible light pulses, radio waves. But why reinvent the wheel? Most flashes have computers in them already anyway so just add a WiFi card and assign the flash an IP address! That would open up another huge horizon for remote control of flash. If WiFi is used to send images, why can't it control the flashes too?
6) Make dedicated slaves: Hey Canon and Nikon, in case you haven't noticed at least 50% of your flashes are used on light stands, not in the hot shoe. So why are you putting a hot shoe on every flash you sell? Optimize some models as slaves, with an integrated, adjustable mounting bracket compatible with a standard 5/8" light stand stud and remote sensors that will not be hidden by modifiers.
7) Make adapters for legacy equipment: Making all these suggested improvements need not render all legacy hot shoe flashes obsolete. All you need to to is also create hot-shoe>TosLink adapters to bridge the technology gap between your stubborn reliance on 19th century mechanical friction connection for flash which are their weakest link the root cause for all the third-party work arounds...
Please Santa I still believe in you so I know you can make it happen in my lifetime. But I ain't getting any younger ya' know so please kick the elves in the butt and try to get it into the stocking by Christmas 2009, OK?
Chuck
P.S.: Thanks for putting the 50D under the tree early. The cookies and milk will still be there on the 25th.
The problem with built-in radio slaves is regulatory, not technical. 180 governments on the planet all regulate radio differently and its a bigger hurdle than camera makers have wanted to jump.
But since companies like PW, Buff, and a start-up like RadioPoppers have all seemed to overcome that obstacle you need to wonder when the heck the flash makers will wake up and respond to consumer demand for better control and greater range. For example, Canon's brilliant solution. Adding a PC connector to the 580ex to encourage users to hobble it with radio triggers.
Having separate a radio module, either proprietary or third-party, connectable via a standard interface (both connector and signaling) would allow the use of radio where it is allowed legally. Where it isn't a plug-in optical, wired, or fiber-optic module could be used with the same interface. Another solution would be to piggy-back on existing standards such as WiFi which are now pretty universally accepted.
cgardner wrote:
The problem with built-in radio slaves is regulatory, not technical. 180 governments on the planet all regulate radio differently and its a bigger hurdle than camera makers have wanted to jump. But having separate a radio module, either proprietary or third-party, connectable via a standard interface (both connector and signaling) would allow the use of radio where it is allowed legally. Where it isn't a plug-in optical, wired, or fiber-optic module could be used with the same interface. Another solution would be to piggy-back on existing standards such as WiFi which are now pretty universally accepted.
I don't think Wifi is gonna happen, unless they can put it on 802.11a or n. I don't have any spare b/g channels with just the wifi devices I use in my home, let alone in a busy city. But a co-op PW+RP initiative would be awesome.
Could you and your elves please rethink the paradigm of hot shoe flash and come up with something better?
1) Lose the hot shoe: First its a lousy mechanical connector. It might have
2) Lose the PC plug: Its an even worse mechanical connector than the hot shoe
3) Lose the wires, or at least make them optional: Look to the way Apple
They have Chuck - it is called "studio strobes".
It is just that the GD strobists think you can make decent images with those harsh little transister radio-type boxes. The rest of us have moved to 7.1 sound systems. Yes, you *can* tell the difference!
OK, just kidding, no flames ... Congrats on the 50D!
I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where I learned the concept of pay for play from the current Mayor's Daddy in the 1950s-1960s. It works on the North Pole too.... the key to getting goodies you want from Santa is paying off Mrs. Claus.
I tried to convince her it was perfect as a bag for the new camera (which took those shots) and it even has pouches on the front for the flashes. But you can guess how that went ..
