580EX II Troubleshooting

All,


I've been having some repeated problems with my 580EX II flashes, where it changes into TTL exposure mode and essentially loses communications capability with the camera underneath. When this happens, the flash almost always fires far too strong for the picture, and when it's on cameras with menu control, the camera can't seem to communicate with the flash (I get a black screen with a message). Oddly, this seems to happen across at least two of my four flashes, and on three different bodies: a 1D3, a 40D, and a Rebel XTi.


Has anyone seen this? Since the flashes have the new-fangled auto-locking latch on them, I don't think it's a case of the flash being loose. Since I change flashes around a fair amount, I think the contacts are getting enough "action" to stay clean enough. Poor batteries, perhaps?

Is your flash going into sleep mode? That's the only time I have seen this with mine. Once I turned sleep mode off the problem went away. If you already have it off then my next guess would be the batteries. What kind do you use?

Flash isn't asleep. Example happened a few weeks ago - flash (with CP-E4 battery pack) was on my Rebel XTi. Camera set for continuous shooting. Shutter button down, all of a sudden one of the shots is super-bright and then several are dark.


Since TTL seems to be only selectable as a Custom Function, the fact that I can't get back into the flash to change that CF tells me something else is going on.


I'm starting to suspect my batteries. I have about 10 sets of Impact (B&H store brand?) 2900mAh NiMH batteries and 6 sets of Sanyo Eneloop batteries. Since I "know" the Eneloops will hold their charge, I try to use the Impact batteries first. If the flash comes out of its pouch, the batteries get recharged (and a shelf set goes in). Maybe it's time to try the Eneloops as first-round batteries and perhaps ditch the Impact batteries.