flash shoe adapters

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Is it crucial to avoid all-metal hot shoe-to-light-stand adapters when setting up a EX speedlight remotely. My EX 550 would be set to "slave" and fired by either a ST-E2 transmitter, or a 550 on the EOS 3. I have a few metal adapters hanging around that are useful because they have adjustments for pan and tilt. I just don't want to risk shorting out the contacts on the bottom of the flash shoe(and damaging the internal circuitry) if I forget to set the remote 550 to "slave" before sliding it into the adapter.

I have some all plastic adapters (including the "foot" that comes with the 550), but they're all less satisfactory for one reason or another.

-- Jonathan Barber (jbarber1@nycap.rr.com), December 04, 2000

Answers

Why not apply some "electrical" tape to the metal shoes to insulate the contacts?

-- Dave Herzstein (dherzstein@juno.com), December 05, 2000.

I knew I should have mentioned that I've tried tape. At least for me, the fit of the flash in the shoe was then too tight; sometimes the tape peeled up and wadded into a mess at the back of the shoe. I'm afraid that even if the tape stays in place, there's a chance it would wear through and let the contacts touch metal (assuming it matters!)

-- Jonathan Barber ((jbarber1@nycap.rr.com)), December 05, 2000.

If it matters, Canon doesn't seem to be saying so. I've been through the 550EX manual quite a few times and don't recall them mentioning metal hot shoe adaptors. Since there will never be any voltage applied to the contacts, I can't see how it would hurt.

Paul

-- Paul Ferrara (paul@columbusoft.com), December 05, 2000.


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