Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I have a Canon XSI and just bought an alienbee 800. I bought the other sync cord that has the short part that connects to the 2 prong cord because I know alienbees can sometimes have trouble with a canon, but it still doesn't work. And the sync cord it came with doesn't work with it. Both cords allow the test button on my hot shoe adaptor to work the flash. I bought my alienbee after using a friend's WITH my camera and there was no problem at all and it was with using the sync cord that comes with the alienbee. What can the problem be if I know my camera has worked with an alienbee and just won't work with mine??

Try a different sync cord.

RMS

Does sound like either the sync cord or the sync jack in your bee. If I may be so primitive, try wiggling the connection where the cord plugs into the Bee as well as the camera end.

I've tried the sync cord that came with the bee and the 2 piece sync cord set recommended for Canon EOS series. Both will allow the hot shoe adaptor test button to fire the flash, but not my camera. Maybe it is the hot shoe adaptor not working with my camera...

loosen the lock down knob on the adapter. If it is tightened too much, it will actually draw teh contact ball off the corresponding contact in the shoe.

K, I was told by a friend to try and shoot my onboard flash at my alienbee and see it it strobed...it did...so why the heck won't it work when I push my shutter button?

Firing via teh sync cord and firing via another light are two different means of triggering. And other than each being a means to trigger, they are unrelated. Try loosening the adpter some and see if that helps, if not, press down on the adapter to see if it will fire. If it does, at least we know where the issue lies.

Additionally, if the camera has a live view feature, disable it. In many, if not all Canon models with live view, the hotshoe is disabled in that mode (as well as PC sockets, if equipped).

This happened to me years ago with my old 20D. I tried everything but nothing worked until I re-set the camera to factory defaults. I can't remember what setting caused the problem (haha, I'm old) but the default settings fixed it.

D

I am having the exact same problem with my Canon XSI, and resetting to factory defaults didn't fix it. Has anyone else figured out how to solve this? I found the following:

-All the connections are good. The flash fires fine using the test button, and the hot shoe adapter works fine on a different model camera (Canon XT). The knob is neither too tight nor too loose. Live View is disabled.

-The flash DOES fire when the camera's pop-up internal flash is on. It even fires when the pop-up flash is on but covered (meaning that my B800 is firing via the PC connection and not the optical trigger).

It seems like the XSI disables the hot-shoe output unless the internal flash is switched on or a Canon speedlite is connected. I tried resetting everything to the factory defaults, I am using the latest firmware, and I can't find any settings that affect the problem.

I am considering upgrading to the CyberSync so that I can do away with the PC cord entirely, but I am worried that the same problem will occur since the hot shoe doesn't seem to be working right. Does anyone have any advice?

I don't much in the way of suggestions other than to confirm that the XSi does not disable the hotshoe for non-canon speedlights. I've had non-canon speedlights in the hotshoe of my XSi and they fired.

In fact, if the XSi disabled the hotshoe for any non-canon speedlight, you wouldn't be able to use a cyber sync either.