Customer Reviews

Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord 2 for Canon Pro1, G2, G3, G5 & G6 Digital Cameras

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord 2 is indispensable for those who use a speedlight bracket for portrait photography. Raising the speedlight off the camera body helps eliminate hotspots, redeye and lens hood shadow in flash photography.

Canon needs to make the cord much, much longer (don't know what electrical resistance problems this will cause) to utilize directly (as a master) with umbrella lights. I must use the umbrellas as slave units - because of the short cord length.

One look at the set screws in the base reminded me of a problem pair of eyeglasses where the set screws backed out if you just looked at them wrong. A very careful application of CLEAR nail polish over each screw has prevented problems others have had (so far) with the screws backing out. This etches the plastic - apply sparingly and carefully.

I'm CONSTANTLY checking, tightening, checking, remounting this cord and speedlight interface to insure reliable function of my 420EX and 580EX speedlights - mounted on a flashbracket with an adjustable arm. Flipping the arm back and forth for landscape and portrait picture formats - puts stress on the hotshoe and speedlight sides of the cord. After some failures - these compulsive actions become "normal" procedure!

If someone has a better cord - I'll use it. In the meanwhile - if you use a flashbracket - you need this cord.

As a professional photographer, I find myself going through 5-6 of these cords each year. My equipment is my livelyhood and although it is used often, I am exceptionally careful with all of my gear and do not bang it around or abuse it. I use a stroboframe which makes it necessary to use this cord to raise the flash well above the focal plane of the camera. These cords are very expensive to get just a few months out of them. Eventually, the hot shoe connector will either become loose and the connection will no longer function or the plastic connector will break and your flash unit will fall to the ground. (This has happened twice to me and fortunately I was able to catch the flash unit!)

The cord is indespensible if you need it, but contact Canon USA and ask them to reengineer this cord or expect to replace them every few months.

Using a flash bracket allows the flash unit to be located away from the camera, which reduces shadows and generally improves the quality of your flash photography. Canon's Off Camera Shoe Cord 2 is a convenient accessory that provides the required link between the camera's hot shoe and the flash bracket's clamp.

Cord 2 is easy to use, and is generally very sturdy, however care should be taken to avoid putting excess stress on the critical screws that hold the components together. This applies primarily to the connector that the flash unit is attached to, as this connector bears the weight of the flash unit and batteries.

When attached to a bracket, and the camera is held horizontally in the landscape mode, the flash unit is upright and the stress due to gravity is minimal. However when the camera is held vertically (portrait mode), the weight of flash imparts significantly more stress on the connector, and the screws that hold it together. The affect of gravity on the flash unit tends to pull the connector apart. Similar stresses occur when the arm of the bracket is rotated between the vertical and horizontal position, or simply when the camera with the bracket attached is swung around. The housing of the connector is made up of two hard plastic sections held together by three tiny machine screws. Over time, stress and torque can cause these screws to work loose, or even strip their threads.

The flash contacts area a second potential problem area. The flash contacts are mounted to a plate that is held in place by four screws located under the metal retaining clip that holds the flash unit in place after it slides in. Under stress, these screws can also work loose, resulting in the flash failing to operate. Tightening the screws will usually make the cord usable again, but you may need to have a small screwdriver handy in case this happens during a shoot.

In my case, the four screws securing the contacts became loose, causing my flash to fail to operate. By tightening the screws after every use, I was able to continue using the cord a few more times, until the connector actually split apart and broke. While the camera was in the vertical position, the screws stripped out of the base of the connector. Fortunately the wiring remained attached between the broken pieces, because they prevented my flash unit from falling to the floor and possibly being damaged.

I'm on my second cord now, and am constantly aware of any stress that I put on the tiny screws in that critical fitting. Cord 2 is a great accessory, but it definitely has a weak spot. Care must be taken to minimize the stress that gravity places on the flash unit connector, to insure that it lasts as long as possible. It is not an inexpensive item, so buying replacement cords is a rather costly proposition.

I have been using this cord for about a year, and I had problems with its durability. It actually worked fine for a for the first 5 months, but then it started to fall apart. When mounted on the hotshoe of my flash bracket, the thin plastic shoe (where the flash is attached to) developed a crack and eventually broke off, making it useless to mount the flash. I had to buy a replacement part from Canon (who charged me $16 for this small plastic piece). I flipped the flash carefully from then on, but then it still cracked!! I wrote to Canon and asked them to reinforce the bottom maybe made of metal instead of thin plastic. So far, there is no response. A few months later, the cord, for some unknown reason, makes my 550ex flash switch from the ETTL to TTL mode, and making the flash fire at full power, overexposing the entire image. I checked the flash by putting it directly on the camera's hotshoe, and the flash worked fine, switching back to the ETTL mode. For a piece of equipment from Canon, it's hard to imagine it giving so many problems. It's like they only paid tons more attention to their cameras than their accessories. As there are no other OEM manufacturers of this cord, I am forced to get another one and hope for the best.

I am on my third off-camera cord (about one per year). Two have broken. As other reviewers noted, the four screws under the metal retaining clip on the "female" end of the cord loosen and eventually fail.

I have found that a thin narrow knife can be used to remove the black "spring" cover over the screws on the shoe. You can then tighten the screws with a screwdriver. If you use Locktite on the screws then they will not loosen. Canon should do this at the factory.

I use this cord with a Stroboframe "portrait/landscape" grip which raises the flash over the camera by six inches thus eliminating red eye and providing a much more pleasing light. The stroboframe grip comes with the right size threaded screw for this cord.

When my cords failed I lost the extended-through the lens metering just like another reviewer noted.

I am not a professional photographer and only use the camera occasionally yet the cord still fails. Canon should re-engineer this cord to make it more durable.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that there are alternative cords. It looks like I will need to keep buying Canon cords.

Let's face it... if you're shooting with a bracket, you need this device. The problem is it's not well made. I'm on my third in a year's time. The hotshoe that hold the flash has a nasty habit of breaking at the base, making it tough to keep the thing on the bracket. That means my 580EX has had a couple of tumbles, which not only puts your equipment in a bad way, it makes you look unprofessional on the job. It was a relief to switch to using Gary Fong lightspheres and ditch the brackets altogether.

I agree with everyone here regarding the need to have this Off Camera Shoe Cord, and the regret that Canon won't improve it so that it lasts longer than a couple jobs. I also appreciate the suggestion to purchase the metal foot, but I just need to point out that I haven't been able to get the screw tight enough (the threads are just plastic) to keep the flash from rotating. I end up checking and re-aligning the flash every few minutes. So, the ideal situation would be for Canon to fix their problem.

I got this cord mainly for Macro work so that I could use long Macro lenses along with my flash without having to deal with the lens shadow in the picture. It is also very nice to be able to control the direction of the lighting by placing the flash above, below, or beside the subject. Red eye can also be almost entirely reduced by moving the flash further away from the camera body, so this cord is helpful for portrait work. It could be a little longer, but the longer it gets the more difficult it would be to pack it small spaces, so all-in-all I think they did a pretty good job. It works fine, if you want all of your flash's functionally, but don't want it in the hotshoe, this is a good choice.

Length:: 3:06 Mins

This is a good product. However, caveat emptor (buy beware), the build of this product isn't the best. It's made of plastic and the part of the cord that is attached to your bracket can break very easily when your camera and flash are horizontal. The weight of the flash (and your diffuser) can break the plastic that keeps it in place.

I recommend screwing this piece in place to a bracket such as the Stroboframe Camera Flip Flash Bracket. Hope this review helps.

[...]

I had used the off camera shoe code for years with my 35mm equipment. Waited too long before buying this one for my digital gear, but am happy I finally bought it. I have a stroboframe bracket and it gets the flash up high enough above the camera that the shadows disappear along with the red eye problem. I bought this in combination with a Omni-bounce flash diffuser, which I had also used in the past and was very satisfied with the results.

You can't go wrong with the Canon off shoe cord, it's very handy and works like a champ.