Canon 580EX II Question

[Michael_2010]

Let me preface this queary by stating that I have had the 580EX II for quiet a while and I've spent very little time going through the options and even less time actually using it. Now, I would like to set up the flash near a bird feeder and see if I can capture some BIF shots of the small flittering and fluttering songbirds that tend to gather around the feeders.

Is there anyone out there that could give me some quick and easy settings to make this happen. I want to use a low ISO on the camera and a fast shutter speed. In fact, I basically want the flash to freeze the motion of the wings and use the camera settings for optimal resolution, etc.

I can position the flash and stand pretty close to a perch without disturbing the birds or limiting my view. Do I have to use the camera's (7D) built-in flash to activate the 580EX even though I don't need or want the flash coming from the camera?

Basically I'm thinking:

Manual Mode
Set Power to some value
Set zoom to about 80mm
And, make sure the camera and flash are communicating, which seems to be the tricky part once one steps away from ETTL.

[bhursey]

Master mode from the 7d won't do hss so your going to be limited to 1/250 shutter speed. To pull off the shoot you would need a TTY radio trigger with hss capabilities.

[Michael_2010]

Thanks for the info. The more I fooled around with the settings yesterday, the worse off I got. Now I don't think the camera and the flash are even on speaking terms these days. lol

[brianxlt]

Page 119 through 129 in the 7D manual details how to set up the camera to flash communication. Yes you will need to use the pop-up but there is a setting to allow just the external flash to be the light source rather than the pop-up. Not sure what page it's on though.comunication

[mrteacherdude]

It can be a bit tricky to get the camera and the flash communicating with one another at first, but once you get the hang of it, everything should go well. Even though I'm sure you've already done this, I recommend reading both manuals, the one for the flash and the one for your camera. I had to go through both of them several times before I started getting the hang of it.

I don't know what the 580 EX II is like as I have a 430 EXII. However, I suspect there is a function on the flash similar to mine that allows you to set the flash to slave mode, and manual power settings rather that ETTL. On mine the zoom button is pressed and held until the flash goes into wireless slave mode; the mode button, pressed and held, causes it to go into manual mode.

The pop-up flash does need to be activated to control the flash. However, in the flash control menu section in the camera, selecting the built-in portion of the menu will allow you to access controls for communication with the slave. You can turn off the pop-up, or use it along with the slave in different ratios of light output. I recommend looking at the (camera) manual and then playing with the different combinations to get a feel for how all of this works.

Note that the menu functions for external flash control will not even be available unless the flash is connected to the hotshoe of the camera, or presumably via sync cable. Similarly, the built-in flash control is not available if the external flash is connected directly to the camera. This drove me bonkers at first for some reason...

[Michael_2010]

I got this speedlite over a year ago for some project I had in mind. I used it on the camera a few times and didn't really like the results I was getting. Never really could get into all the intricacies of getting the most out of the thing.

Early yesterday morning I wanted to try an experiment with my latest photographic passion and see if I could better freeze the action of small birds in flight with flash instead of shutter speed. Before I could get it all working, I lost my ambient light. So, I will have to give that another try another day.

Do you know off hand what the maximum distance is between the camera and the flash before it stops communicating?