Canon 380ex - useless for off-camera?

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vaizki

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Jukka
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I was digging through the attic and found an old Canon 380ex flash gun that I thought had been lost years ago. I've never used it for anything except E-TTL on-camera flash before.

Now I have a much better flash (Metz AF-1 58) and the 380ex can't compete at all.. so I thought maybe I could use it as an additional flash for off-camera multi-light setups. But it doesn't have manual control at all so off it goes at FULL POWER if I put it on a small optical slave hot shoe that I picked up. Not too good. Also tilts but doesn't swivel and whine-cycles for ages after a full blast.

Is there any reason for me to keep the 380ex? I don't think it can act as a wireless slave either. Should I just flog it for £65 (seems to be the going rate here) and get a YN-465 canon TTL gun instead or am I missing some trick here?

Hmm.. just tried it on my G9.. works with E-TTL and looks the part :lol:
 
I bought one off here for £50 ages ago, I use it off camera with a Yong Nuo (sp?) that I bought from here too. It does take some playing around to work out where to position it but I still find it useful.
 
So you adjust the power just by moving it further? I'd imagine it eats up batteries like crazy?
 
Remote flash is a hugely useful tool and the as public are now seeing more imaginative/well detailed images as a result of this technique the more togs are going to have to learn about the various remote flash techniques just to compete.

It is rare that you would want a 2nd flash at the same power as the first so having a second flash lower output is not really an issue - and when it is you could always reduce the output of the more powerful one.

I started playing around with cheap "eBay" triggers (also sold on here by Flash in the Pan) and they are really useful tool but not reliable enough if you only have one chance of the shot. You could get lucky as some prove very solid but I have binned 3 of the 4 that I have bought. I still consider this an investment as they provided me with the tools to learn off camera flash.

For all matters off-camera-flash you need go no further than strobist.com. Almost every conceivable use is demonstrated or discussed there and the learning curve is considerably flattened after doing their "lighting 101" section.

I have, and still use, a 12 year old Canon flash which is perfect as a second flash, set to manual for small fill-in bursts.

:thumbs:
 
Umm yes.. my problem is exactly that this second flash fires at FULL power and there is no manual mode. I found the manual and indeed there is no way to dial down the power of the 380ex. So it's not very useful as a second flash, might as well sell it on and get a fully manual one (YN-460 II or the new 468 look good).

Btw, I do have a set of beginner studio lights too so this is my 4th flash actually :lol:
 
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