Is the 580 EX II badly designed?

[JonathanRyan]

LPA (who make Pocket Wizards) seem to think so.

http://www.canonrumors.com/2011/02/580ex-ii-faulty-by-design/

That site has links to a long techie document that TBH is way beyond me. I think they are saying that there's a design fault in the 580 Ex II that isn't present in any other flash and that repeated use of HSS with this flashgun can cause it to blow.

Which is kind of interesting.

 

[Byker28i]

Interesting reading thanks. I was expecting it to be a little more biased but it's actually a very fair and detailed analysis, with a reasonable conclusion.

Are they faulty by design, no I don't think so, because as they say, it's less than 1% of failures of units connected to their triggers. That's probably a small percentage of owners, which then comes more likely a problem (or within tolerances) with the manufacturing inconsistencies.

As they say in their conclusion, there may be some inherent design issues which coupled with manufacturing inconsistencies could cause increase the unit to fail when used in a certain mode/method.

 

[HoppyUK]

Not really a design fault, but it seems possible for certain components to be assembled in slightly different positions, which can (rarely) lead to faults when the gun is used heavily in HSS mode for example. I'm sure Canon will have fixed this by now; it's just a matter of instructing the assembly team to make sure they put the critical components in exacly the right place.

It shows up particularly when folks use Pocket Wizards because their excellent optimised high speed sync feature promotes using the gun heavily in this mode. So if there is an assembly problem, it shows up pretty soon with a PW.

Edit: Off topic - BTW Jonathan, did you see my update on the HSS drop in exposure? The gun I was using and that showed over 3 stops drop was faulty! The real number is around 2-2.3 stops, which is what you were saying I think. I've ammended the thread. Apologies

 

[JonathanRyan]

Not really a design fault, but it seems possible for certain components to be assembled in slightly different positions, which can (rarely) lead to faults when the gun is used heavily in HSS mode for example. I'm sure Canon will have fixed this by now;

The article seems to suggest Canon have fixed it in the 480 II- but not in the 580 EX II.

Edit: Off topic - BTW Jonathan, did you see my update on the HSS drop in exposure? The gun I was using and that showed over 3 stops drop was faulty! The real number is around 2-2.3 stops, which is what you were saying I think. I've ammended the thread. Apologies

Yeah, just got some coffee and off to read it. Busy couple of days....