Compatibility with Flash

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*Sam*

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Samantha
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Hi everyone,

Firstly, I'd like to appologise for not really knowing what I'm talking about, but I would really like to know if anyone has suffered a similar problem or knows how I can go about finding a fix for it.

I have a Canon 550D and absolutely love it to bits, never had any issues with it at all. However, yesterday I went to a studio which I hired out along with the equipment there. The guy who owned it had it all set up and when he went to connect the hot shoe flash to my camera, it detected that there was a flash attached, although when I fired the camera, it didn't fire the flash on the 2 large softboxes. He said it was unusual since all of the canons which he has tried have worked perfectly and its usually some nikons which have issues. Now, I don't know anything about external lighting at all so can't really give you much information other than the fact that I'm a bit worried whether the 550D has a limited number of flash systems it can work with? Do I need to ask if he has a specific piece of equipment to make it work? Or is it literally that it's just not compatible?

Any help greatly appreciated,
Sam
 
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Sounds like your problem is the studio guy. Nothing wrong with the camera.

Why are you fitting a hot-shoe flash to the camera? You should be fitting a propper flash trigger, probably radio but could be IR.
 
It might not be a hot shoe that he was fitting, that will probably be my fault because unfortunately I don't know the technical terms for the lighting equipment due to me having never used it. He did seem to know what he was talking about but neither he, nor I could get it working.
He fitted a small box to my camera with a test button on it where the flash normally sits and this was wireless. I'd assume this is the trigger you're talking about which was then supposed to fire the soft box flashes when I took a photo. Although this didn't happen. Yet when he used the exact same setup on my mums Canon 450D it worked perfectly... That's what I can't understand. How a later canon model can not be compatible with something which the earlier model was.
 
It sounds like he was fitting a radio trigger :thumbs: The fact that it worked on your mum's camera suggests a problem with your 550D.

Could be something simple like dirty contacts, or sometimes they come loose and lose the connection that way. Either way, it can only be a fault with your camera, probably very minor. Maybe the screw under the hot-shoe cover needs tightening, or the little micro-switch hidden in there has got damaged.

Should be easy to fix. I've never had this probelm but others that have will probably be along soon to advise :)
 
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