Canon off shoe cord 2

[Al_Escudero]

Are there any reliable alternatives to this cord? I need one (or an equivalent) for a flash bracket and internet forums are filled with posts indicating they are unreliable and break frequently. This cord sounds like a weak link and the last thing I want is to be at a wedding and have my flash fall off and break, or have the cord stop functioning. At $50 a pop carrying spares isn't a cheap option, and if it dumps my 580EX as others have had happen, I could be out an extra $500 to boot... Not to mention having this thing fail at a critical time during a shoot could result in the loss of irreplacable pictures.

Some examples of posts I have found:

I'm CONSTANTLY checking, tightening, checking, remounting this cord and speedlight interface to insure reliable function of my 420EX and 580EX speedlights - mounted on a flashbracket with an adjustable arm. Flipping the arm back and forth for landscape and portrait picture formats - puts stress on the hotshoe and speedlight sides of the cord. After some failures - these compulsive actions become "normal" procedure!

The problem is it's not well made. I'm on my third in a year's time. The hotshoe that hold the flash has a nasty habit of breaking at the base, making it tough to keep the thing on the bracket. That means my 580EX has had a couple of tumbles, which not only puts your equipment in a bad way, it makes you look unprofessional on the job.

I agree with everyone here regarding the need to have this Off Camera Shoe Cord, and the regret that Canon won't improve it so that it lasts longer than a couple jobs. I also appreciate the suggestion to purchase the metal foot, but I just need to point out that I haven't been able to get the screw tight enough (the threads are just plastic) to keep the flash from rotating. I end up checking and re-aligning the flash every few minutes. So, the ideal situation would be for Canon to fix their problem.

As a professional photographer, I find myself going through 5-6 of these cords each year. My equipment is my livelyhood and although it is used often, I am exceptionally careful with all of my gear and do not bang it around or abuse it. I use a stroboframe which makes it necessary to use this cord to raise the flash well above the focal plane of the camera. These cords are very expensive to get just a few months out of them. Eventually, the hot shoe connector will either become loose and the connection will no longer function or the plastic connector will break and your flash unit will fall to the ground. (This has happened twice to me and fortunately I was able to catch the flash unit!)

This camera cord shoe works well. However, it can break relatively easily so I suggest having two at any given time. Also, the cord length can be too short at times and two long depending on your needs.

I am on my third off-camera cord (about one per year). Two have broken. As other reviewers noted, the four screws under the metal retaining clip on the "female" end of the cord loosen and eventually fail.

I have been using this cord for about a year, and I had problems with its durability. It actually worked fine for a for the first 5 months, but then it started to fall apart. When mounted on the hotshoe of my flash bracket, the thin plastic shoe (where the flash is attached to) developed a crack and eventually broke off, making it useless to mount the flash. I had to buy a replacement part from Canon (who charged me $16 for this small plastic piece). I flipped the flash carefully from then on, but then it still cracked!! I wrote to Canon and asked them to reinforce the bottom maybe made of metal instead of thin plastic. So far, there is no response. A few months later, the cord, for some unknown reason, makes my 550ex flash switch from the ETTL to TTL mode, and making the flash fire at full power, overexposing the entire image. I checked the flash by putting it directly on the camera's hotshoe, and the flash worked fine, switching back to the ETTL mode. For a piece of equipment from Canon, it's hard to imagine it giving so many problems. It's like they only paid tons more attention to their cameras than their accessories. As there are no other OEM manufacturers of this cord, I am forced to get another one and hope for the best.

However when the camera is held vertically (portrait mode), the weight of flash imparts significantly more stress on the connector, and the screws that hold it together. The affect of gravity on the flash unit tends to pull the connector apart. Similar stresses occur when the arm of the bracket is rotated between the vertical and horizontal position, or simply when the camera with the bracket attached is swung around. The housing of the connector is made up of two hard plastic sections held together by three tiny machine screws. Over time, stress and torque can cause these screws to work loose, or even strip their threads. The flash contacts area a second potential problem area. The flash contacts are mounted to a plate that is held in place by four screws located under the metal retaining clip that holds the flash unit in place after it slides in. Under stress, these screws can also work loose, resulting in the flash failing to operate. Tightening the screws will usually make the cord usable again, but you may need to have a small screwdriver handy in case this happens during a shoot. In my case, the four screws securing the contacts became loose, causing my flash to fail to operate. By tightening the screws after every use, I was able to continue using the cord a few more times, until the connector actually split apart and broke. While the camera was in the vertical position, the screws stripped out of the base of the connector. Fortunately the wiring remained attached between the broken pieces, because they prevented my flash unit from falling to the floor and possibly being damaged.

The flash shoe is too weak to hold the Canon 550EX, or equivalent Flash when mounted on Stroboframe bar. I have broken 3 of these units and will not buy another. they are plastic with metal screws that hold the two halves of the flash shoe together. The Flash when mounted to the shoe puts too much stress on the flash shoe which breaks inside where the screws attach to the plastic.

In addition to the cheap plastic shoe, it also has a diode inside with a horribly designed connection. The end of the leg of the diode is just placed up against the flat surface of the contact and soldered. This instead of placing it in a hole or other reinforcement. This means that ALL the mechanical strength comes from the solder. Of the three I have had go bad in the last three months, this diode is what has failed each time.

am shopping for my 3rd one of these. The first one burned out the solder joints on the hot shoe contacts inside the base. My current one (2nd) is inconsistent in firing the strobe requiring frequent removal and contact cleaning, resulting in many missed shots

I use a pro "T" flash bracket on my Canon Mark 2 with an off camera shoe cord for weddings. These cords break down on me about every three months and there is no way I'm told to fix them. The flash connects to a small plastic base and it's prone to loose it's connections eventually through movement since there is a lot of mass per a small surface area, you'll notice right away when the flash and camera loose it's connectivity.

This is probably the 20th off-shoe cord we have had to purchace in the last few years for our (2) 20D's. We know of no other choice for a better constucted product with syncronicity. The portion of the cord that fails everytime (and is the culprit everytime) is the part that actually connects to the top of the camera (the shoe)it carries the weight of the flash unit (Speedlight 580 EX)and is made of plastic (not metal)

[Al_Escudero]

As an addendum to the previous post - a flash bracket seems like my best option for improving my flash lighting while on the move - yet all brackets (as near as I can determine) require an off-shoe cord - leaving this flimsy canon cord as the weak link in the system. I find it somewhat surprising (given the volume of negative posts and the apparent prevalence of this problem) that the situation hasn't been remedied, or that professionals have not discovered a workaround for off-shoe E-TTL lighting.

Suggestions welcomed...
AL

[John Kemp]

I find the Ste-2 transmitter pretty good.

[Brian_Wilcox]

I have used the off camers cord for 10 plus years with a flash bracket. Never had a problem...Brian

[Al_Escudero]

What sort of flash do you have Brian, and how often do you use it? I'm wondering if this is a problem primarily with the beefier flashes like the 550 and 580. They are pretty heavy and I can see a plastic mount having difficulty holding them in a vertical orientation - especially if you turn the unit from horizontal to vertical relatively quickly...
-AL

[Al_Escudero]

I have an ST-E2 John, and I do use it, but I'm not sure how effective it would be if mounted directly below the flash unit and facing in the same direction as the flash. I suppose if it had something nearby to bounce a signal from, and if I there weren't sunbeams nearby to confuse it, the ST-E2 would probably work, but I have reliability concerns. Pity the ST-E2 wasn't RF instead of IR. I've noticed Canon has recently dropped the price on the ST-E2 - I hope that's foreshadowing the imminent release of a new and improved unit.
AL

[Terry Zorich]

Originally Posted by Al_Escudero

I have an ST-E2 John, and I do use it, but I'm not sure how effective it would be if mounted directly below the flash unit and facing in the same direction as the flash. I suppose if it had something nearby to bounce a signal from, and if I there weren't sunbeams nearby to confuse it, the ST-E2 would probably work, but I have reliability concerns. Pity the ST-E2 wasn't RF instead of IR. I've noticed Canon has recently dropped the price on the ST-E2 - I hope that's foreshadowing the imminent release of a new and improved unit.
AL

I have an STE-2, and have used it exactly as you describe, Al...and even with TWO flashes (at the time, they were 550EX's) mounted directly above the transmitter, and facing the same direction. They both "saw" the signal from the transmitter and fired properly. I think the STE-2 is a good alternative to the Off Shoe Cord. On the other hand, it requires a pricey battery, and there would probably always be just a little doubt about whether the "wirelesss" connection would work correctly in a critical situation, such as at a wedding...

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