Peter,Peter M. Macdonald wrote:Deanimator
Canon cameras do not trigger flashes in live view. This is not particularly well explained in some of the model manuals. This is a real shame, as this would be a winning combination for many people on here.
If the flashes are working correctly when live view is not in use, they are working correctly.
Maywatt,
I am currently using some ancient Vivitar 283s, which seem to be fairly consistent from flash to flash. However, the trigger voltage on some of them is absurdly high, something like 330 volts. So I trigger them with photo-electric slaves which are designed to withstand their trigger voltage. I trip these by means of a very low power flash from a Canon 550 EX on manual and dialled down to its minimum power. But it would be nice for people to have access to low cost modern manual flashes which have a large range of power adjustment. As you are no doubt aware, modern flashes have a 6 volt trigger, so as not to fry the electronics in digital cameras. Not like the robust electrics in my beloved Olympus OM 2.
Peter
I suspect those older manual flashes used better energy storage capacitors than the cheaper ones today, ones that don't change much with internal temperature and have a low and stable ESR.
One thing I've done to help with the flash/strobe output variation is to "precondition" by firing many 100s of full power outputs before using when they were new and firing quite a few full power flashes before each use. It was the "preconditioning" that melted one of my brand new speed light lenses, because the overheat thermal sensor failed. These were never intended for the abuse I routinely put them through, so can't blame the speed light.
Yes 330V would certainly cause problems with our DSLRs!! Probably get a nasty shock too!!
Cheers,
Mike