580ex flash will sporaticaly put out a super bright burst of flickering light, lasting for about 3 to 4 seconds-when not even pressing anything on camera or flash. Also, shortly after this happened, the flash SUPER overexposed all images taken afterwards--almost completely white images, at all exposure settings. Took batteries out, restarted camera and flash, same thing. After a few attempts at this, it suddenly went back to normal. Please help!Thanks.

Power goblers - these flashes hate week batteries :(

You must disable the 580EX II form using the 4AA.

4AA must be needed when using hv power pack.

Just let the 4AA use & display the LCD panel.

More help, repairs & troubleshooting send me an email.

atdlee@netzero,com

Your camera has a small flash unit that can throw a bright burst of light to help illuminate dark scenes. It takes quite a bit of electrical power to put out that burst of light, and it takes several seconds to build up a sufficient charge before it can put out another burst of light.

Use the reset button on right side and hold power button at same time

There is a button with three arrows pointing to the right on your 580EX. Press this until the 3 arrows appear on your flash LCD. That is second curtain sync. The other function of that button is for High Speed Sync

It would appear to me that the flash was not locked in position and has move back on its mount which would cause the flash to go into complete manual mode or loose complete communications between camera and flash.
I would suggest shutting the camera and flash off remove the flash first unlock the little locking leaver on the bottom. The 580EX and the 580EX II differ in that the 580EX II has a leaver rather then the huge locking screw. Once apart reinsert the flash unit back into the camera hot shoe making sure that the forward edge of the flash mount is seated as deep into the Hot Shoe as possible and lock it into position. It should click into lock position. Biggest thing I have with my "crew" is when there is a flash installed on the camera they pick the camera/flash unit up by the flash that's a real bad thing cause the flash mount is light plastic and it'll ether break, twist or even unlock the flash enough that the camera falls off of the flash. Pick the assembly up with both hands lens and body. I'm not saying you are doing this but when my crew/working associate's do this I'm not happy.
Although that new switch idea is great it also can be unlocked without noticing.
Diagram

(A=LIGHT,B=MODE,C=START,D=RESET)
1.How to use the luminescence Any time indication,Press A the Luminescence will last for 3 seconds.
2.How to view date? Standar time indication, press C "month/ date" indication.
3.How to switch 12/24 hour systems In the normal mode, press B twice and press D twice ,then hold C until 24 hour system is actuated, then press B for recovering.
4.How to check alarm ring and alarm time? Standard time indication,press D alarm time indication.
5.How to set alarm time? Standard time indication,Press B twice. The hour area flickers,press C to set the hour. After setting hour ,press D,the minute area flickers, press C to set the minute. Last press B for recovering.
6.How to set alarm ring? In standard time indication mode ,Hold D then Press C this will toggle alarm symbol on & Off.
7.How to set Hourly Chime? In standard time indicationmode, Hold D then Press B DAY OF WEEK area toggle on and off.
8.How to use stopwatch(1/100 seconds) Press B,then Oress C for 1 timing; Press D for multiple timings. Press D once more to continue operation after multiple timing. Press D for 1 timing; press C once and press Dtwice for multiple timing. (1)Max range of the stopwatch is 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds. (2)When timing within 30 minutes, the watch indicates: minute/second/1/100 second (3)When timing beyond 30 minutes, the watch indicates:hour/minute/second
9.How to adjust time, date,day of week (1)Standard time indication,press B twice ,the second area flickers, pressC to adjust second. (2)Then press D the Minute area flickers,Press C to adjust minute. (3)Press D the hour flickers, press C to adjust hour. (4)Press D the Date flickers, press C to adjust date. (5)Press D the month area flickers, press C for adjustment. (6)Press D the Day of Week area flickers, press C for adjustment. Then press B for recovering.

Yes. If you were able to set a faster shutter speed, then you would not expose the entire frame and would have the shadow of either the first or second shutter curtain (or both) partially masking the frame.

At higher speeds, the shutter is never fully exposed: before the first shutter curtain has finished travelling across the frame, the second one has stated it's journey. All SLR's have this issue and on some older models you could only use a maximum 1/60th of a second.

In practice though, in dark conditions the "slow" shutter speed does not affect exposure as the true exposure will be determined by how much light the flash puts out, and it puts this light out in as little as 50 microseconds (50 millionths of a second) for a modern electronic flash bulb.

Faster shutter speeds can be used successfully, but only with flashes which operate in high speed mode. What they do is to make the flash burst seem longer by rapidly firing the flash bulb many times. This trick can ensure that there is sufficient light to expose the frame at the highest shutter speeds. Shutters which operate at, say, 1/4000 may seem fast, but compared to the speed at which a single electronic flash burst operates, it's an eternity.

Hi Doug,

Try putting in 4 brand new batteries Lithium Energizer.
Or feed the Turbo Battery into the 3 pins port.

You flash is over 5 years old.
Or your NiMh are no longer holding a charge.
Do you have a DVM?

[email protected]

same problem after a 30 cm falling on the floor. U must open the head of the flash and rearange the flash Bulb on the moving(zooming) track. images of how to u cand find HERE