10d, 550ex, and Vivitar 285???

[Nutter]

I was trying to set up to take some close ups of flowers today with a 10d connected to a 550ex via the OCSC2 and a Vivitar 285 connected through the PC socket.

I know this has worked in the past, but the Vivitar is only firing about half the time. Even when I push the button directly on the flash, so I'm pretty sure it's not a cabling issue.

I tried new batteries, nothing. I tried firing the flash by pushing the red button, nothing. I tried switching out cables, nothing. Well, none of them are nothing, but it's more like 1 out of 10. Each time I waited for the ready light to flash red-green.

My only concern is that the flash acted up at a wedding reception last weekend. It went dead after a bunch of shooting which I attributed to the batteries dying. But popping the batteries out and back in (not replacing them) brought it back to life.

Any suggestions???
- Ryan

[jtford]

Originally Posted by Nutter

I was trying to set up to take some close ups of flowers today with a 10d connected to a 550ex via the OCSC2 and a Vivitar 285 connected through the PC socket.

I know this has worked in the past, but the Vivitar is only firing about half the time. <snippage>

Any suggestions???
- Ryan

The camera has both an ettl and non-ettl flash attached, and your Vivitar is getting confused as it's trying to work a preflash in.

You could run the 550ex through the PC port and use a cheap optical slave for the Vivitar, which works fine if you don't mind manual exposure adjustment (no e-ttl through the pc).

You could put an expensive optical slave (designed to ignore the preflash) on the Vivitar (Wein makes one, about $70).

Or there are other options, such as going all manual (cheap) flashguns or all Canon (not so cheap) flashguns, but you're current setup will not work consistently.

[Nutter]

Oops, left something out. The Canon flash is set on manual, so it shouldn't be firing a preflash. But, either case, why would a preflash interfere with the Vivitar dump button?