canon 430ex ii battery indication?

[tachy]

I recently purchased this flash for my canon sx10. Could there be no low battery indicator? Am I missing something? How do you know when the batteries are running low?

[Beowulff]

According to Canon's spec page for the 430EX there doesn't seem to be a low battery indicator. I don't have this unit myself so can't really offer you any help — sorry. Some guns have a manual pre-flash test mode; dunno if this does?

There's quite a good review of the unit HERE.

Cheers

[tachy]

it does have a pre flash test, but I don't think there are any battery low warnings. I would think in an electronic product such as this, and certainly not low price, that there would be something as simple as a low battery warning.

It does work well, but I do wish it would have mentioned in my sx10 manual that the autofocus assist lamps on this flash do not work with this camera, since that is at least partially why I purchased it, since the sx10 seems to be very poor at focusing in dark (and even not so dark) lighting conditions. (and its manual focus is ridiculous with a dial that turns and turns with little response and is so easy to push the wrong button while you are doing so.

[Csae]

The 430EX II Isn't really marketed for that camera, at all. Its consistently aimed at D-Slrs, that being said, you raised some very valid facts.

It should of been mentioned, and i hope you can get a refund or something.

And i never thought about it, but a low battery indicator would do wonders, But, you could buy your own, they can be rather cheap. And flashes dont usually just run out of juice, you can tell when the batterys are starting to get low because of longer recycle times.

So the first point is very valid, the 2nd would be nice, but isn't needed, like i said, you can pretty much tell, and i generally always carry spares, but it would be nice to know before i can notice it.

Im talking about noticing it, i use Nimh batterys and the normal recycle time is maybe 2s on 1/2th for my flash, if they are running low, it slowly climb to 3... then 4... So i can still very much make use of the flash... but i can tell.