> I would like to know if the manual says how to get back to normal > state from the auto power-off? Especially I'm interested how this > is done when the flash is in wireless E-TTL slave mode. Thus do I > need to press some button in the flash or can it be woken up > wirelessly? Is there some time limit for the wireless wake-up; thus > how long can the (slave) flash be in auto-power-off mode until it > can't anymore be woken up wirelessly?
>From page 15 of the same instruction manual: ===SIGMA INSTRUCTION TEXT BEGINS=== AUTO POWER OFF To conserve battery power, the flash unit automatically turns itself off when the flash is not used within approximately 90 seconds. To turn the flash on again, depress the TEST button, or the camera shutter button halfway. Please noe that "Auto Power Off" mechanism does not work with wireless TTL flash mode, normal slave flash, and designated slave flash modes. ===SIGMA INSTRUCTION TEXT ENDS=== I haven't tried it but it looks like it won't self-power-off when used as a slave. NOTE: In addition to all the wireless ETTL flash modes found on the 550EX, this Sigma unit has some extra non-Canon off-camera slave modes that the 550EX doesn't have, in which it fires in response to any flash burst, as if it were an ordinary "dumb" slaved studio flash unit (although it's actually a little more complicated than that). That is, the Canon wireless ETTL light-pulse protocol is not used in these extra slave modes, and in fact when the EF 500 Super is in one of them, an ETTL preflash will cause it to fire prematurely as you would expect with an ordinary slave. This is what the manual means by "normal slave flash and designated slave flash modes". I guess this facility could be used to slave the EF-500 Super to other cameras etc. However the existence of these modes doesn't affect the answer to your question, because the device never self-powers-off in any slave mode, Canon or non-Canon. IMHO all these bells and whistles make the lack of an external power source connector an even more obvious design goof. --Ken S. * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
