I asked this in the Canon section but it doesn't seem to be getting any replies, so i figured I'd post here, since more of you might be using the flashes the way I do.
Occasionally, when using my 580exII's as remote flashes, I've noticed that at the end of the night, they've switched over to M mode and the power is set to 1/128th... I have a feeling that they are doing this because the batteries have gotten low and it is the flashes way of preserving the little remaining battery power... but I can't seem to find this anywhere in the manual.
interesting, I don't normally use mine in this way, curious to see if anyone else has info about it. normally if I am shooting all evening with off camera flash, I tend to use strobes.
Hmmmm. That's weird. We may have had the same issue, but what I recall is a bit different. I think a few times the flashes have shut themselves off when the batteries are low. When I turned them back on, I recall the settings being different. Can't recall exactly because anytime this has happened, I was much more interested in quickly swapping for new batteries to keep on shooting. So I just kind of powered through the weirdness.
Flashes are weird. Both my nikon and canon flashes have minds of their own. I have never had this happen but who knows. What about if the flash shut off or went on standby....when it wakes up it might freak out. I have seen that happen.
That is why I use my AB's . Plug them in and go the only thing that can go wrong is a burnt flash or bad trigger.
Battery is definitely the issue but it can also be a heat issue. If it happens towards the end of the night after the flash has fired 400 or 500 times the head may overheat and lower it's output for protection. Just a theory. No fact behind it.
RichardLavigne wrote:
has anyone else run into this?
I haven't run into that at all... regardless of using my packs or not. Sounds more like heat consequences and throttle back to me. The only time I really mass shoot though is during the bouquet toss. (just fwiw)
Ok... I thought heat at first too... but here's what made me think no.. I just pulled them out of the bag, after they've been sitting since November 20th.. same batteries as I ended that night with.. and they immediately kicked to 1/128th power... I switch to new batteries... normal operation.
OK here is my take.... Whenever I have rechargeable, lower current cells in, then the flashes behave very strangely when the cells start to empty.
Remember that when you have you external power supply connected, the default mode is that the onboard controls/logic aspect of the flash is powered by the cells in the flash but the actual capacitors get charged by the external power pack.
Next time it happens try flick cfn12 = 1 and see if that helps, or put a new set of cells in the flash only.
Also, how old are your cells, can you be sure each individual cell is ok?
next time it happens quickly replace all cells and see what happens, that would be fairly diagnostic exercise I reckon.
morganb4 wrote:
Remember that when you have you external power supply connected, the default mode is that the onboard controls/logic aspect of the flash is powered by the cells in the flash but the actual capacitors get charged by the external power pack.
I didn't know this... but this makes sense. If I change the batteries in the flash it has no effect. I have to actually change the batteries in the pack.
there's a CFN that gives priority to where the flash is drawing power... don't have the manual in front of me but I seem to remember that it does exist.
RichardLavigne wrote:
I didn't know this... but this makes sense. If I change the batteries in the flash it has no effect. I have to actually change the batteries in the pack.
This changes things.
Tired/ageing/crap rechargeable cells tend to exhibit really strange behaviour when they are run down. If you are set to draw your entire recycle supply from the packs and those cells are faulty, then you could be heading for random-land. I have a set of cells which when used in my 580's cause them to misfire during focus.
Where you have your Cfn 12 set is just going to make the problem show up differently.
With healthy cells, even with Cfn set to default (1) you should just see a delay in recycle time, unless your cells are in poor condition in which case anything could happen. With Cfn = (0) the load will be shared but you run the risk of having the flash cells fail before the pack does - in which case you have no flash power.
If you have bad cells, you are more likely to run into trouble with CFn = 0 because you can easily get into a situation where there is not enough juice left to keep the 580 logic behaving normally. However changing the cells in the pack probably wont fix that because the 580's brain only ever draws power from the onboard cells - your onboard cells will still be flat.
Lets say that you were on CFn 12 = 0, you replace the cells in the pack and bingo it works, that doesn't actually demonstrate its the cells in the flash which would be much more likely to expire first. If it were the cells in the flash causing the problem and you have cfn 12 = 0, changing the pack would not fix the problem. Same goes for CFn12=1. Therefore your issue must be with the pack or the cells, more specifically.
Even so, its hard to say exactly because the behaviour of tired cells is kind of random in nature. I never tried my bad cells in conjunction with a power pack because I know that under-powering electronic systems is incredibly bad for them and when I realised what was going on, I dumped them.
Try refreshing your cells. Dont mix old ones with new ones ever, keep/use and recharge blocks of four together in the group they were bought in and label/colour them as soon as you get new ones. This prevents you from having a soup of cells of varying ages and qualities. So if one system starts to fail you can just replace those cells only. If you have a battery soup, you wont know what the hell is going on.
