Making sense of the Canon’s Speedlite Interface
Photo courtesy of Syl Arena @ Speedliting.com
I recently had a frustrating experience with my Canon 580EX II Speedlite. I’ve always been working with Nikon Speedlights so I am obviously familiar with the way it works but I had decided that I’d shoot a portrait session using 3 units of Canon Speedlites. Having attached the Speedlites onto Pocket Wizard FlexTT5 Receivers, I proceeded with the session. That’s when the Speedlites decided on their very own to shut down to save power! Now, I have 36 pieces of rechargeable AA batteries in my case so running out of power was definitely not an issue. It was then that I realized with a sickening feeling that I would not be able to switch off the power-saving feature without the instrustion manual. The Auto Power Off function is a custom function and in order to access it, you have to know that it’s Custom Function Fn-01 but if you access it on the Speedlite, there are 13 custom function and it is not indicated on the LCD panel which is which!
To cut a long story short, I ended up having to press the test firing button on all 3 units of 580EX II to switch it back on every time the Speedlites did not fire when I pressed the shutter and nothing happened! Serves me right for not carrying the Speedlite’s instruction manual with me although are you really supposed to do so?
Today, I read an article by Syl Arena on his Speedliting website and I realized that I could have adjusted the Auto Power Off function settings via the Canon EOS-1D Mk IV’s LCD panel. In fact, I had plain forgotten about this ability. Oh well… now I know.
Please follow this link on Syl Arena’s article on how to adjust your Canon Speedlites via the camera’s LCD panel. http://speedliting.com/how-to/best-flash-control-interface/#more-1698
