Greetings! I am a real estate photographer and I use as many as four EXII-RT speedlites for lighting spaces. One speedlite is on the camera and is the master in group A and is used to light the main room being photographed. The other speedlites are slaves and in groups B, C, and D as required for lighting adjacent rooms and spaces and are all RF controlled. For about the past year, the RF signal is constantly being dropped, requiring me to switch off and back on each speedlite to re-establish the connection. I waste more time resetting speedlites than I care to admit and it's really annoying. They might flash as expected, and then without reason, the signal is lost, requiring another reset. I have tried everything that I can think of. I have changed channels, scanned for the best channel, new batteries, and rotating master status to each speedlite. Nothing seems to work. They may work as expected for a while, and then it happens again.
At about $600 each when I purchased them, I didn't expect this failure. They all worked great when they were new, they worked great.
I expect that there are wedding and event photographers using multiple RF controlled speedlites in the same way.
I am wondering if anyone is experiencing similar challenges and if so, what solution(s) have you tried, and have any worked. I have asked Canon through CPS, but the only advice they could give was to change channels.
I prefer to use Canon, but at over $1,000 The EL-1 is out of the question, and the 600 series is no longer available. The 430EX won't work for me. The Godox TT685 is as powerful as the 600EXII-RT and at $130, it's a bargain. Plus it is built very well. I bought a Yongnuo as backup for when I send a flash in to CPS for service. It's functional, but a real P.O.S. The build quality really sucks. Good in an emergency or as a backup, but that's it.
Any feedback is highly appreciated! Thank you!
