topic Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting in Speedlite Flashes

Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

mHeston — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:21:11 GMT

Hi,

I am spreading the news about the failure of communication between Canon "Sender" (Master) flashes and Canon "Receiver" (Slave) flashes. Since around 2020 the communication between Master and Slave flashes can be broken by a public radio wave of some kind. I’m not an EE, so I can’t tell you what the source of the problem is, but I can tell you that I have tested equipment all over the greater Seattle area, and about 80% of the time the Slaves disconnect from the Master in under 20 minutes of being turned on. The shortest time to disconnect happens in 60 seconds with most disconnects occuring in 8-12 minutes. I’ve only tested this in the greater Seattle area, but I suspect that if you are in a major urban area you will experience this failure.

I’ve tested this with Canon 600EX RTs and with a new R3, RL-5, and ST-E10, so it’s happening to the latest Canon equipment.

You can read about what I’ve tested here: https://hestonphoto.com/info/canon-flash-failure-01.html

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use

normadel — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 05:49:53 GMT

Can you take a trip to somewhere far away from the Seattle area and see what happens?

Have you spoken to any other photographers with Canon flash gear to see what their experience is?

If it's 5G radiation doing it, it's hard to believe there isn't more of this happening all over the country.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use

rs-eos — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 11:53:06 GMT

It is happening everywhere. It also happened to me and is the reason I have since moved on to a different brand for my lighting.

There are several threads on these forums detailing the experiences of others. i.e. that for some unknown reason, communication links between triggers (doesn't matter if its the first or second-gen ST-E3-RT) and the flashes will intermittently fail (first and second-gen 600 EX RTs, etc.)

Some of the threads:

In that last one, I had replied in 2021 that I had not yet experienced the issue. But soon thereafter, I began to experience it.

There's hope that Version 3 of the ST-E3-RT will address the issue.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use

mHeston — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:30:32 GMT

When you get away from urban areas they work 95% of the time. I just don't get paid to shoot in those area. Also see RS-EOS comment about other photographers.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

JLCKJC — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 20:54:17 GMT

I read your note here and also went to your website to read your detailed testing report. Well done testing and write-up.

I sure wish someone at Canon would weigh in on this issue. As it is, one can only conclude that the Canon RT flash trigger system is not suitable for its intended use in its current form based on the many link failures reported here in their own forum.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

mHeston — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 21:43:29 GMT

JLCKJC,

Couldn't agree more. I really can't believe they are knowing selling equipment that is prone to failure. I'm hoping a firmware update could fix the problem.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

JLCKJC — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 23:53:49 GMT

For those of you who have been following the WiFi link dropping issues with the Canon RT flash system here are two recent YouTube videos posted by Bob & Dawn Davis Photography: 1:02:07 NOW PLAYING Watch later Add to queue (youtube.com) and 45:34 NOW PLAYING Watch later Add to queue (youtube.com) In these videos Bob discusses the Canon RT flash system specifically and many other competitive systems with regards to their strengths and weaknesses.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

rs-eos — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:43:05 GMT

Thanks for sharing. Will check these out this week. I had the chance to meet Bob Davis back in 2014 at a Canon Speedlite workshop.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

rs-eos — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 13:45:14 GMT

Actually, what Bob presents in the videos (I mostly watched the second one), is nothing new per se. Back in 2014/2015 when teaching various Speedlite workshops, he mentioned the idea of redundancy. For what he does (weddings), that makes sense. i.e. having two camera bodies himself, having a second shooter, on-site portable drives to copy cards to, and two different systems to control the flash (built-in as well as either Pocket Wizards or Radio Poppers).

But even at the time, I didn't go down the path of having a redundant wireless system since I didn't need it for what I was doing. Even now, I don't do any type of event work. But, even though I can take my time to set up a shot, as with others, it became extremely frustrating to have communications drop. And sometimes drop very often (sometimes at least once per minute).

When looking for my next lighting system last year, the Canon EL-1s were $1,000 each. Almost double that of the 600 series. And even though they had some nice improvements, the guide number was the same as the 600 series. The investment I did with AA rechargables would also go out the window since the new flashes were powered with different batteries. And then of course the wireless issue. So if having to add on a redundant system, the price per flash now increased.

The only con (though very minor) with my new system of lighting is that the strobes are larger than Speedlites, So I cannot place lights in certain areas (e.g. hidden within lamps). Though honestly, I've not had the need to do that in the past, so is something I won't miss. Still, the possibily of hiding Speedlites in small spaces, was a nice attribute.

But, having a solid wireless system these days, modeling lights and so much more power output is solving all my needs for lighting.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

mHeston — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 15:33:44 GMT

EL-1, great features, but the lack of a reliable wireless connection is the killer for me. I mean really, I understand backward compatibility, but come on Canon, let's shoot the elephant in the room your wireless SUCKS.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

JLCKJC — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 17:11:34 GMT

Yes, Bob's advice is spot on with regards to equipment redundancy for wedding and similar events. They are one-time opportunities, and a few missed shots could be a real disaster.

My primary reason for posting the videos was to show recent real-life examples as to how unreliable the Canon RT flash system has become as experienced and reported by respected and well-known photographers. As I have said before, the system is no-longer suitable for its intended purpose. Continuing to sell the RT flash system as is, is an insult to Canon customers. Canon needs to fix this issue even if it can't address their legacy products.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

rs-eos — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 17:26:47 GMT

Bob is one of Canon's Explorers of Light, so hopefully this will put more pressure on Canon to come up with a solution.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

JLCKJC — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 17:43:11 GMT

I just left a comment on Bob's TouTube video about the poor experience many Canon RT flash users are having with dropped WiFi connections. I encourage others having this issue to do the same.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

mHeston — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 18:04:55 GMT

Or he might put less press on them because he doesn't want to lose the lucrative position.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

rs-eos — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 18:22:24 GMT

As an aside, I would certainly hope Canon wouldn't drop his title. Though I have seen two Explorer's of Light over the years no longer be listed. I'm sure there may be more. One was Syl Arena. He fell ill (stroke?) a while back and around that time, Canon no longer listed him. Personally, found that a bit mean-spirited, but I'm not privy to any of the details. Another formerly-recognized Explorer of Light was Stephen Eastwood. He had joined Bob Davis during those Speedlite workshops I had mentioned earlier.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

mHeston — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 18:38:16 GMT

I can add another to the list Ken Sklute. A great photographer and educator who was released when Canon wanted to join the ranks of the corporate DEI.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

normadel — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 05:33:43 GMT

I web-searched for "Canon flashes and 5G interference" and found a lot of material.

Results show only two Canon links, to threads on this forum, and many articles about 5G interference all over the place.

It seems that 5G causes problems with many portions of the radio spectrum. Canon flash is one victim that may be insignificant compared to the others.

Here's one of the papers:

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12046

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

mHeston — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 05:42:25 GMT

Thanks for the info. It is not insignificant when using these is how I feed my family. And the fact that Canon is commiting advertising fraud is also not insignificant.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

normadel — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 06:36:07 GMT

Not trying to belittle your (and every other Canon flash system user's) problem at all.

Compared to problems with weather satellites, GPS and national security, and aviation altimeters, though, I'd say general photography ranks low on the scale of critical international importance. Canon isn't the only victim of a a too-crowded radio spectrum with not-enough separation of apportioned frequency bands. Everyone has to be trying to figure this out.

Re: Canon radio-controlled flashes failing in use - Senders and receivers disconnecting

rs-eos — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 12:46:07 GMT

This isn't helpful. This problem has been going on for at least two, if not three years. And over all the years of using electronic equipment that makes use of the 2.4 GHz band (10+ years now), only Canon's Speedlites have failed in these latter years. All my other devices from Apple, Nintendo, Pioneer (to name a few) have not dropped communications like the flashes did for me during 2022 to 2023.

So clearly the onus is on Canon to address this.

Trust, is also an issue here. I was a huge proponent of working with all Canon gear as much as possible to include lighting. If this was something that was addressed say with the EL-1 and EL-5, I'd chalk it up as the 600-series just being too old. And I'd be a-ok with that and suspect many others would agree. But when the latest-gen of Speedlites have the same issues and there's no response from Canon, trust is eroded.

I predict that we'll see more and more photographers move to other brands.