This is a copy of an entry in the lighting forum which has not received any responses so I thought I'd try and seek advice here.
I sometimes need to leave a flash unattended in a camera trap situation and don't want it to power down. It is possible to use CFn 01 to disable the autopower down sleep mode but only for 60 mins. I can't find a way of turning it off altogether.
I assume Canon have set it up this way to preserve battery power but I use an external battery pack that I have found will last for up to 18 hours and beyond.
This is a real problem with a wildlife camera trap when using HSS to allow faster shutter speeds. I use a PIR coupled to a 5DIII with an ST-E3-RT, set to HSS, firing the flash. Both camera and flash have the same timing problem, i.e. switch off after 60 mins. The PIR sends half presses to the camera more frequently than hourly but the camera does not transmit half presses to wake the flash, - even if I do a half press manually via the shutter button. The camera will only send full presses to the flash.
In practice this means that if the PIR is set to trigger, say, 3 shots the first camera activation only wakes up the flash but no image is taken so I miss this one and only get the next two.
Does anyone know of a flash transmitter that fits in the camera hot shoe that sends a full press more frequently than hourly that would keep the flash awake? Or any other way of resolving this?
Many thanks,
Gordon (Wilcock)
I sometimes need to leave a flash unattended in a camera trap situation and don't want it to power down. It is possible to use CFn 01 to disable the autopower down sleep mode but only for 60 mins. I can't find a way of turning it off altogether.
I assume Canon have set it up this way to preserve battery power but I use an external battery pack that I have found will last for up to 18 hours and beyond.
This is a real problem with a wildlife camera trap when using HSS to allow faster shutter speeds. I use a PIR coupled to a 5DIII with an ST-E3-RT, set to HSS, firing the flash. Both camera and flash have the same timing problem, i.e. switch off after 60 mins. The PIR sends half presses to the camera more frequently than hourly but the camera does not transmit half presses to wake the flash, - even if I do a half press manually via the shutter button. The camera will only send full presses to the flash.
In practice this means that if the PIR is set to trigger, say, 3 shots the first camera activation only wakes up the flash but no image is taken so I miss this one and only get the next two.
Does anyone know of a flash transmitter that fits in the camera hot shoe that sends a full press more frequently than hourly that would keep the flash awake? Or any other way of resolving this?
Many thanks,
Gordon (Wilcock)