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

[mHeston]

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

[JLCKJC]

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. 

[rs-eos]

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

[JLCKJC]

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.

[mHeston]

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

[rs-eos]

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.

[mHeston]

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. 

[normadel]

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

[mHeston]

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.

[normadel]

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.

[rs-eos]

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.