POLL: What flash modes do you use?

[pwp]

I do know however that I fried my 600rt flash a couple of months ago, the flash head was replaced under warranty.

Ouch! That's unfortunate. I'm glad you still had warranty cover.

-pw

 

[privatebydesign]

One note: shooting at full power kills your flash, so if you often shoot m flash anyway w/o need for Canon's rt protocol maybe it's a good idea to buy a cheap Pixel flash... ruining the flash tube of a €500 flash seems like a waste of money if a €70 flash does the same thing.

Interesting. Where did you read that? In a multi-decade career using flash almost daily, I've never heard this. On the contrary, underused flashes can have shorter lives, but then it's the capacitors that generally fail. Flashes that are stored unused for long periods should be "exercised" from time to time.

I'm happy to stand corrected here! As with much knowledge I cannot pinpoint the exact source, which doesn't necessarily mean the information was wrong. Maybe others can add some insight.

I do know however that I fried my 600rt flash a couple of months ago. Coupled with my (probably mistaken) "knowledge", I pinpointed the reason to me using the flash at 100% full power for daylight fill flash all the time. The effect was that one day the power got weaker, fluctuated and then the flash was broken.

Flash tubes have a remarkably short full power rated lifespan. We all generally get hugely more out of them than the ratings but that doesn't change the actual manufacturers specs.

Tube and capacitor specs are a very good way for the cheaper clones and copies to make what appears to be "the same" thing, but can have a dramatically different lifespan.

http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/2013/02/will-your-flash-last-forever.html

 

[pwp]

Flash tubes have a remarkably short full power rated lifespan. We all generally get hugely more out of them than the ratings but that doesn't change the actual manufacturers specs.
http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/2013/02/will-your-flash-last-forever.html

Interesting read. Thanks for that. It completely contradicts my own no-doubt narrow though long experience, but maybe I've just been just plain lucky.

To quote the Strobist article....And it might surprise you to know that 5,000 pops is an expected life span for some flash tubes. Disappointed? I was, too. And it gets worse: some tubes are rated at 1,000 pops.

No manufacturer could survive on these figures, every sale would result in a warranty replacement. On a big day I'd easily expect 1000+ pops from 580 exII & 600 ex-rt, and sometimes 3000+ from the Einsteins in a big studio session. Comments in the Strobist post are also completely at odds with the claims.

I'd love to see some real manufacturers numbers on this, unsubstantiated Strobist editorial content doesn't necessarily establish stable facts. Like contemporary Japanese cars, I'm constantly amazed at the durability and reliability of products sold by Canon, Panasonic, Apple, Paul C Buff (US) and so on.

But flash tubes? The future looks very bright.

-pw

 

[privatebydesign]

Flash tubes have a remarkably short full power rated lifespan. We all generally get hugely more out of them than the ratings but that doesn't change the actual manufacturers specs.
http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/2013/02/will-your-flash-last-forever.html

Interesting read. Thanks for that. It completely contradicts my own no-doubt narrow though long experience, but maybe I've just been just plain lucky.

To quote the Strobist article....And it might surprise you to know that 5,000 pops is an expected life span for some flash tubes. Disappointed? I was, too. And it gets worse: some tubes are rated at 1,000 pops.

No manufacturer could survive on these figures, every sale would result in a warranty replacement. On a big day I'd easily expect 1000+ pops from 580 exII & 600 ex-rt, and sometimes 3000+ from the Einsteins in a big studio session. Comments in the Strobist post are also completely at odds with the claims.

I'd love to see some real manufacturers numbers on this, unsubstantiated Strobist editorial content doesn't necessarily establish stable facts. Like contemporary Japanese cars, I'm constantly amazed at the durability and reliability of products sold by Canon, Panasonic, Apple, Paul C Buff (US) and so on.

But flash tubes? The future looks very bright.

-pw

Yes but don't forget the test spec listed is one full power pop every twenty seconds for five thousand pops, and failure is considered micro cracks not flash failure. It is very possible we all have micro cracks in our tubes and they work fine, but from a manufacturers spec point of view they are failures.

I have blown capacitors and had tubes die but I have used all my flashes for well over 5,000 pops, though I couldn't speculate on the number of full power pops and they certainly never go at 20 sec intervals for any serious number.

 

[Lawliet]

I'd love to see some real manufacturers numbers on this, unsubstantiated Strobist editorial content doesn't necessarily establish stable facts.

It makes sense once you set the right context. The blog doesn't.
The tube would really die quite fast if driven at its rated power - if. But tubes of the size found in your average flash gun have rated powers of about 200Ws, give or take. With only a quarter of that energy in the capacitors and the steep power/lifetime curve of the tube something in the 100k full power pops range is a more realistic lower estimate.
Beware - that's if everything, electronics hate overheating after all, is properly cooled&ventilated. Exeeding the max. energy for a certain time window is also a bad idea. If you manage to fry your strobe those are the likely culprits.

 

[TMSCanon]

I use Manual settings for almost all photos - studio & outdoor. ETTL works fairly well (i.e. correct exposure) for me when I bounce the light. However, I find that using ETTL produces unpredictable results in most situations, especially with modifiers - reflectors, umbrellas, etc.

 

[skoobey]

how about MANUAL?