New Canon Advisory

A relatively new service advisory from Canon (December 2014) that advises against the use of lithium batteries in virtually all Speedlites. Canon acknowledges that lithium batteries may become extremely hot when used in Speedlites.

This should be considered breaking news for Speedliters. If we checked the user manuals for the last five Speedlite introductions and they all say that lithium batteries can be used in the Speedlite.

A long while back that lithium batteries are bad for Speedlites.

• When a 580EX Speedlite with lithium batteries was fired at full power every 20-seconds, the average flashes-to-failure was 52 pops. This compares to averages of 165 for alkaline and 235 for low-discharge nickel-metal hydride batteries, like Eneloops.

• When the Speedlite with lithium batteries was fired at full power every 3-minutes, the average flash-to-failure rose to 218. It’s not that the lithiums lacked the electrons. Rather, they just like to hold onto them—which is why they can hold a charge for many years.

• Most importantly—under the standard 20-second test interval, the sets of lithium batteries would be too hot to hold immediately after the test—on the high side of 140ºF/60ºC.