580 EXII, strobe/multi function with RF trigger

[coldpenguin]

Does the 580 EXII function in multi mode with a (cheap) wireless trigger?
Or have I managed to set it up wrong. I remember in the past that I had difficulties getting it to work on-camera.

So, I select/press MODE, until it changes from ETTL, -> M, -> Multi
I press OK/Set so that the right-hand flashes, spin the dial, it marks 2Hz, this should be easy to see work....
I press OK. Number of shots flashes, I dial this to 6, this should be equal to a 3 second exposure, easy enough to see
Press OK, extent per exposure, set to 1/128, definitely are not going to over-power the flash.
Press OK, nothing flashes.
Zoom is set to 35mm

So I press the trigger, I get one flash, and that is it. I am using el-cheapo RF wireless between camera and flash (single connector)
Can it just not be done this way?

 

[arad85]

You need to have your shutter open for 3 seconds if you want 6 flashes. I know it works for me on my 602s/580EXII

 

[coldpenguin]

I think it is just the rubbish wireless trigger I have.
I had the camera set to 3 seconds.

If I disconnect the RF trigger, everything works (no changes...), with either
Flash on top of camera,
Flash on remote cord (yeah, basically the same),
Flash using remote IR (made change to settings to set flash as slave, and ETTL)

So I guess that Multi mode mode isn't really manual, (i.e. the RF wireless must be sending one trigger, and the flash is responding to this once, not starting the sequence which has been programmed).

 

[arad85]

What triggers do you have?

 

[alexam]

May be a silly question, but have you got the camera set to Manual mode. What camera is it?

 

[coldpenguin]

Hi, sorry for the delay.
The camera was in manual mode, the triggers were cheapy no-name ones from Ebay.
I am pretty confident now that they just don't do what I was expecting it to do.
I think this is a limitation of the way I thought the flash worked. I assumed, that if you set it to do 6 flashes, it would do 6 flashes, when triggered. However, it will do up to 6 flashes, so long as it is told that it is firing for X seconds, which is not what these triggers do.