Thread: Off-camera flash

Originally Posted by Big Shed

When I looked at the offerings from Canon (430EX and 580EX) I almost choked on my muesli
Don't really fancy spending half the cost of my current outfit on a flash which will only get occasional use, a lot of my photos are taken in a light tent.

$109 will buy a lot of 100W light globes and lamp fittings.

If you want to go all the way this is one way to set it up but it's not essential

Thank you Bob, I already have a setup like that (as well as a Light Tent setup) and I use the energy saving bulbs with them.

I would however look exceedingly stupid walking around an exhibition with that.

As I said, I would like a flash, but off-camera on a bracket, preferably TTL and with a soft diffuser.

That flash on ebay looks like it might be a good buy. I've got a 430EX, but it was a lot of money. It does a good job, and is obviously much better than the built-in flash.

There doesn't seem to be any limit on how much you can spend on photography gear. I've got my eye on a 7D but the cost...

ajw

I have a small slave flash unit that operates on a couple AA batteries. It only cost me about $20.00 USD and gives satisfactory results. It is not a powerful unit but it will fill those side shadows. It folds into a very tiny item for carrying.
Recently I purchased an Olympus SP800UZ camera that is able to send a wireless radio signal to slave units. The flash I purchased for this is the Vivitar SF-4000, about $50.00 USD. It is a fairly powerful unit.
The little unit came from Porter's, the Vivitar from B&H Photo. I am in the US and so are both of these businesses, I don't know what difficulties y'all might have buying from them.

Originally Posted by Rifleman1776

I have a small slave flash unit that operates on a couple AA batteries. It only cost me about $20.00 USD and gives satisfactory results. It is not a powerful unit but it will fill those side shadows. It folds into a very tiny item for carrying.
Recently I purchased an Olympus SP800UZ camera that is able to send a wireless radio signal to slave units. The flash I purchased for this is the Vivitar SF-4000, about $50.00 USD. It is a fairly powerful unit.
The little unit came from Porter's, the Vivitar from B&H Photo. I am in the US and so are both of these businesses, I don't know what difficulties y'all might have buying from them.

No problems buying from B&H, i've bought gear from them twice.

Lighting Technique Forum: Digital Photography Review

Dont know whether you know this forum, but there is often discussion about E-Bay and Chinese flash units.

Hope its useful

Cheers,

Dan

Thanks Dan, have not visited that forum before, but have just spent some reading about this unit as well as the YN468 on the Canon Digital Forum.

Looks like I am about to spend some money

If you are after off camera TTL, you'll need to get one of the Yong Nuo extension cables (I have one, and it looks/feels identical to the Canon one, but it cost $25 not $125)

If TTL isn't essential, YN have just released a new model flash (YN560) with roughly the same power output as the Canon 580EX, so it might be worth looking at instead of the 460.

http://speedlights.net/2010/05/27/yo...anon-580ex-ii/

Check on ebay for it.

(Remember - "YN560 makes you nearly achieve your anticipant lighting effect.")

Thanks MS, I have been studying the YN468 and YN467, as I understand it the YN560 doesn't have E-TTL, am I correct?

Yes, I am aware that I need the TTL cable and have "budgeted" for the all of $25 it is going to cost me.

The user reports on the Canon Digital forum on both the YN467 and the YN468 are very positive.

What will the YN560 give me that the YN468 won't?

The 560 isn't TTL, it just gives you more power to play with (I nearly always use a diffuser and this eats up a few stops of flash power, so the more power the merrier, in my book).

However it does have an inbuilt optical slave, meaning the nasty little on camera pop-up flash can trigger it. Just plunk your off camera flash somewhere convenient and don't worry about tripping over a cord.

Since you can review digital pics instantly, doing a bit of flash fiddling to get the exposure spot on isn't all that daunting.

Having power on hand means you can try things like using flash on your subject in full daylight while underexposing the fully day-lit scene behind (I'm just getting a bit arty, here).

Actualy, on camera flash with a diffuser might work for you, too!

I hear what you are saying MS, but that is not the scenario I am looking at addressing.

Basically what I want an extra flash gun for, as I explained above, is to have a bit more control over taking photographs at things like exhibitions, perhaps fill-in flash outdoors etc.

If I wanted to use it in a studio situation, with multiple units, I would probably look at getting studio flash with umbrellas and soff boxes. I used to have all that gear some years ago when I did lots of portrait, figure and product photography.

The only product photography I do these days is my pens, and a light tent and 3 or so lights with energy saving globes work fine there.

I also used to own a set of 4 Vivitar 285 flash guns with various bits and pieces that I used primarily for nature photography, mainly bats in flight with a home-built infrared beam setup. All this was in the film days, so a very good flash meter was the order of the day.

So, something like the YN468, held on a camera bracket and attached via TTL cable would work fine for what I need. I can then use bounce flash, have a diffuser over the flash etc, without having to get out a flash meter to estimate exposure, or do trial shots to establish correct exposure.

I admit that the YN560 is more powerful, but I am prepared to trade that for convenience and ease of use.

I have to say that the wireless (optical) syncing of the Cannon flashes is very nice - the master flash controls the slaves and tells them when to shut off so you can play around with fill ratios and still have TTL metering...but yes they are godly expensive! I wish they had the ability to be driven by the pop-up flash (like some Nikon models offer) rather than needing a flash dedicated to just being the controller.

If you ever need more distance than the standard cable offers, the cheap approach is Cat5 network cable soldered in place of the original cable! (I couldn't quite get a network jack to fit in the cases to give me the option of being able to swap cables)

This is my set-up with my new Olympus SP800UZ. The flash is radio wireless activated. I can use it as shown or detach and place elsewhere. I also have a radio wireless shutter release that is claimed to work at a range of over 100 meters. Both camera and flash could be placed on tripods and operated remotely for some very interesting possibilities. The bracket was simply in my bag of old stuff, the wood grip I turned with my lathe. This is short of a professional set-up but not by much. My son has a very complete Nikon DLSR set-up with all the bells and whistles. One needs to be a professional weight lifter to haul around and use. My arrangement is very light and encourages taking almost anywhere you might want to go. I'll get the picture when he doesn't because his camera is back at home.
Big Shed, please let us know what you decide to do.