flashgun buying advice

robhullfury

robhullfury

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hi all, im looking to buy a flash for my canon 1000 eos to learn basic flash photography, I would like one which I can tilt etc to bounce off the roof/ceiling....

could anybody advise me what I need to look for on ebay etc.... I read something about hotshoe? dont know what that means? if I dont get one which a hotshoedo I need a cable or something?

any help would be great.

Thanks all

Rob
 
Take a wee trip into Jessops, they're doing the Canon-dedicated 300 AFD for £34 which will give you a good introduction to flash photography.
 
cool thats great thanks, could this be used off camera too with some cable or something? if I wanted to shoot the flash from a side?

sorry I havent got a clue about flash stuff.
 
nope - well kinda, it doesn't have a way to control its power output so off camera its always at full power - you can use it off camera with a trigger (search PT-04 on ebay) and adjust the distance to subject to affect power or use ND triggers.

What would be better is a flash with manual adjustment (£100 ish from jessops not sure of name or canons 430/580EX)
 
Yes, you can use a dedicated cable or a PC sync cable with an adapter for the camera's hotshoe (if necessary) at one end and one for the flash at the other; or you could use a radio or optical trigger. Some flashes have a sync socket for use off-camera and most of the camera manufacturers' own flashes have built-in optical triggers, which are fired by the camera's pop-up flash or another external flash.

The hotshoe is the metal thing with electrical contacts on top of your camera, into which the foot of the flash slides. Older cameras have "coldshoes" (without any contacts) for accessories such as a flash with a sync cable or a rangefinder.
 
robhullfury said:
cool thats great thanks, could this be used off camera too with some cable or something? if I wanted to shoot the flash from a side?

sorry I havent got a clue about flash stuff.
Click to expand...

Yes, you could use it with a ttl-cable, again from Jessops, Canon or a copy one from Ebay. If it has an inbuilt slave function the way the non-dedicated model does then you could also trigger it from your camera's onboard flash.
 
Can anyone point me in the direction of a lead that will allow me to fire the 300 off camera, i need one before friday and cheap please! I guess i should get a stofen difuser too?
 
stofens good, what do you want it for, they give you the bare bulb look and better diffusion if your using it on the shoe, if you can just bounce it off a wall it will look better
 
thanks for all the advice guys, so to sum it all up a good start would be a jessops 300 and a cable thingy?

rob
 
Personally I would get a flash that has manually adjustable power output, for when you get into off camera flash.... ;)
 
right i really need to goto a camera shop and have these features pointed out to me along with prices and then head straight to ebay lol
 
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