First hotshoe flash choice

thecornflake

thecornflake

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Simon
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Hi,

I'm looking for a reasonable hotshoe flash for my Canon 1100d, as a few times recently I've been in a situation where it would been very handy to have one, and the built in flash was either too harsh (I know there are diffusers available for it) or not up to the job.

I've never really understood the whole ttl, ettl etc thing (I know it means through the lens but dont know how it actually figures it out in practice) and whether I need it. There seem to be a lot of products around the £50-£100 range on Amazon, mostly cheaper speedlites and YoungNuo units. I dont wabt to start a whole Canon vs YN argument, if I can narrow down to functions I need I can then spend a bit more time researching the (hopefully) much smaller number of flashes that suit my needs.

So basically I would like something that if I need to I can press a couple of buttons, not think a whole lot and get an ok result taking a quick shot of the kids indoors for example. I also want a little more creative control for exploring different ways to use the flash when I have the time/opportunity, and I occassionally do outdoor portrait shoots so it needs to be suitable for that.

If it's possible to fire from older film cameras its a bonus but by no means essential.
 
First the whole 'ETTL thing'
You set your camera up for a shot using whatever mode is suitable* and leave the onboard flashgun in ETTL mode, it'll work out a correct exposure**

*As a rule of thumb - if you're using flash as fill, you can use any of the exposure modes, if tyou're using flash as the primary light source, you'll find it easier to shoot in Manual - even if you're still using ETTL on the flash.

** ETTL is about as good as any other auto setting, so whilst 90% of the time it's 'good enough' you need to be aware where it'll fail.

Now to your options - from the above, I'd suggest an ETTL capable unit, but the savings reduce further if you want to use High Speed Sync (HSS). If you're shooting outdoors in the harsh sun, HSS is almost a necessity.

Any flashgun that does the above will go into straight Manual mode and work on your old film cameras too. But if you then want to get into off camera flash, you'll end up with triggers too, I'd recommend a YN622 and a 622TX to sort you out there.
 
Budget is ideally up to £100, the YN568EX looks good and has hss.
Any specific reason for having 2 other than just as a backup?
 
You can start with one, it'll make life easier, and like all gear - you'll learn to use it better if you buy it a bit at a time.

But as you asked, a 2nd flash can be used as fill, then a 3rd as a hairlight, a 4th as a background light, a 5th to help raise the power of the keylight.... etc. etc.
 
i use 2 when doing portraits, plus the wife had a canon as well before she absconded over to fuji so was handy if she needed to use a flash
 
Money wise, it seems this comes down to about £40 extra for hss, and I could get the cheaped one without hss and then add one with it at a later date.
 
thecornflake said:
Money wise, it seems this comes down to about £40 extra for hss, and I could get the cheaped one without hss and then add one with it at a later date.
Click to expand...
My personal choice would be to work down in quality / features.

If you get HSS enabled first, you're ready for anything now, next time just go ETTL, then a pair of manual guns.

If you buy a gun without HSS, you'll be upset the first time you could have done with it.
 
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