Extending the Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord with a keyboard cable
The Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord #2 (OCSC2) is a great way to get E-TTL flashes away from the camera shoe, and can make for much more dramatic or flattering images. The problem is that the cord is only 2 feet long; enough for a flash bracket, but not long enough to get the flash truly off camera. I needed a cheap and easy way to extend it.
I do feel that I need to throw one caveat out. This worked for me, it may not for you. If you’re not willing to risk the cable, your camera, or flash, please don’t try this.
One solution is the Canon ST-E2 wireless transmitter. But, at over $200 this was a little overkill for what I wanted.
What I had done previously was to stack 3 OCSC2 cables together. While this got the length up to 6 feet, it was hacky. More importantly, I worried that it was putting extra stress on the connections.
So, I went out in search for a way to extend the cable in a way that was clean, and almost as importantly, cheap.
The Canon cable is a 5 lead with a ground, so we need a cable that is a close to that as possible. A trip to Lowes brought back a 7 lead wire intended for thermostats. Ultimately, this was the wrong cabling. The flash would fire, but it was at full strength every time. Back to the drawing board…
Leaning back in my chair with my keyboard in my lap it hit me. A keyboard cable has six wires, and they’re usually coiled like the OCSC2. A run to Office Depot and I came back with two 6 foot mini-din keyboard extension cables. They’re not coiled, but will serve the purpose. I was set to go again for $19.98 plus tax.
The first step is to get our tools and parts together. We need: wire cutter, wire strippers, x-acto knife, electrical tape, Canon OCSC2, and a keyboard extension cable.
Technorati Tags: Canon, OCSC2
can you tell me if I can buy one of these long off shoe 3rd party cables cheap? I know it must exist.
thanks,
spamguard8-delete3@yahoo.com
`Gordon
I’m sure they exist, but I’ve never seen one. 45 bucks seems too high for a 2 foot cable.
Awesome idea, i was just about to do it to my Sony f828 and HVL-F1000 flash to get it off the camera. So I was looking around for an old keyboard. but… I found 2m of plain old telephone cable (although there is no reason you cant use cat 5 or similar. Works perfectly for a four wire flash extension rig.
My next step will be to use the crimper and some jacks so i can plug or unplug the extension from flash and have different lengths, works fine over 2 meters so should go longer too (its is Phone cable). Then I’ll try double adapters to get two flashes firing from different sides at once, mite have issues with data on its way back to camera tho with two lines coming in at one(but it might be the same data?) Any ideas about that issue anyone? before I fry a perfectly usable (and cheap) hack?
I would think that splitting the cable might confuse something since there’d be two sets of data coming back into the camera. Might work though, and would be pretty slick if it did.
Worked perfectly. Just tried it using the more recent generation of off-shoe connector and it works great. Now I need to get some additional lighting equipment to take full advantage of the off-shoe ability.
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Worked for me too, thanks for the tip! Setup: OC-E3 off camera shoe cord / EOS 350D / Speedlite 430 EX / Speedlite 580 EX II. I soldered the cables and used small shrink tubings (and a big one on each side to make it look nice). Even extending the cable by 20m worked perfectly!
Thanks, had just bought a cat5 cable when I found this link. Great to see that it works before I cut the original cable… Also got those small boxes that can be plugged and unplugged, so that the length of the extension can be changed. My opinion on the doubling issue is that it should work fine; a guess is that the TTL information sent between camera and flash during exposure regards the duration of the flash and hence is one way from the camera. Since flash output is determined by duration and not strength I mean.
Thanks for posting this! I just used two 6 ft. keyboard extension cables. I started to solder the ends but got frustrated so instead I just twisted the ends and used heat shrink on each wire and then a large piece to cover the whole thing.
Works like a champ! I was going to buy a wireless trigger but I’m glad I tried this option. It’s sooo much cheaper.