Searching for 3rd Party Flash

[slieu92]

hello, i have a canon t1i.

and i'm in the market for a hot shoe flash. the 430ex ii is a tad bit out of my reach, so i'm looking towards a 3rd party flash with bounce, swivel, and e-ttl capabilities.

pretty much an on-camera flash that does all the things the 430ex ii can, but much less expensive. anyone with experience?

 

[jackerin]

I was in a similar situation recently, wanted a flash that would work on-camera but that I could also use off-camera as well.

At first I looked at the Metz 48, read good reviews on it saying it had good build quality and consistent power. But it lacked optical slave capability, which made me look elsewhere since I wanted to play around with an off-camera flash triggered by the popup flash. Looked around and I found the Nissin Di866, with just the features I needed.

The Di866 on the other hand is almost as expensive as the 430exII here, so that might be out of your price-range, but you can check out its little brother, the Di622, which is a bit cheaper (and also has the optical slave capability if that interests you).

 

[Edge100]

The Metz 48 and 58 are excellent options, though they are nearly as expensive as the Canon equivalents.

Unfortunately, E-TTL-compatible 3rd party flashes aren't cheap. Consider a used 430EX or EXII?

 

[jampat]

If you really want to save money, learn how to do flash manually. Buy something like a vivitar 285HV for <$100. If you stick with photography most people eventually shoot manual flash anyway. It will take a while to get used to it, but you can get 3 flashes for the price of 1 430.

 

[Edge100]

If you really want to save money, learn how to do flash manually. Buy something like a vivitar 285HV for <$100. If you stick with photography most people eventually shoot manual flash anyway. It will take a while to get used to it, but you can get 3 flashes for the price of 1 430.

This is a good suggestion for off-camera flash; there are E-TTL solutions (and I have the PW FlexTT5, which works very well for this), but manual is generally the way to go for this.

For on-camera (bounced, I hope), ETTL is the far better solution, in my experience.

 

[toxic]

using manual flash on-camera gets to be a hassle. having control over everything isn't always a good thing.

what exactly is your budget?

there the Yongnuo flashes from China (off ebay)...I think the YN-65 supports ETTL. one of the models do, anyway, and its users are pretty satisfied. you'll have to look up the swivel head yourself though...

you can also look for a used Sigma EF-500 (or EF-530) Super ETTL II, around $150 used. a Canon 430ex is ~$180 used.

 

[kyzen]

From my experience, save for the 430ex II. If you buy cheap, you'll just end up buying a better one eventually anyways.

The E-TTL functionality is also going to severely limit your options if you want to stay cheap. The Yongnuo somebody else mentioned might work for awhile, but you get what you pay for...

 

[slieu92]

yea, i considered the fact that i would get what i paid. but it's my mom's money (i'm 17) and she already bought me the camera and the 50mm.

but just curious, how would you manually use a flash? like set the power?