Sb-600 or Sb-800

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adam*

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I'm moving to the dark side and so am looking for something similar to the old 580ex, which flash would be best and what kind of price do they go for second hand?

Cheers,
Adam
 
The 800 is by far the better flash of those two, but the SB-900 is worth the extra if you can stretch to one of those, although a new one is not far off what you can buy two SB-600s from Kerso for....
 
Flash In The Pan said:
although a new one is not far off what you can buy two SB-600s from Kerso for....
Click to expand...

and herein lies the rub ;_;

Another thing to bear in mind is that if you're ever planning on getting radiopoppers, the remote power adjustment will work with the 600 and 800 but not the 900.
 
I'll be using one as a on camera flash, needs to be fairly powerful as it will get used for press work.

For any portraits i'll be using two flashes where possible but with rf602's and the second will probably just be an old vivitar or something.
 
I've got one SB-900 and two SB-600s, the 900 gives more power which I rarely use and the controls are much better. The SB-600 controls are anything but intuitive, but fine once you get used to them.

The 900 has built in gels which are nice, but I now have velcro and gels on my 600s.

I find that I use the 600s more often than the 900, they are much smaller and fit onto my softbox fine, unlike the 900.

All in all the 900 is obviously better but is really a big attachment. I'd rather have two second hand 600s than one 900.
 
adam* said:
I'll be using one as a on camera flash, needs to be fairly powerful as it will get used for press work.

For any portraits i'll be using two flashes where possible but with rf602's and the second will probably just be an old vivitar or something.
Click to expand...


SB 900 with external battery pack, there have been some issues with them overheating and tripping the thermal cut out, although after a fair bit of reading on the web it seems to be down to the resistance that different types of batteries have. They have all also said that the external power packs negate the issue as it seems that the batteries heat is tripping the sensor and not the heat of the flash.
I have only managed to trip my sb900 when firing full power as quick as the flash would recharge, I cannot remember how many it was but more than I would need.
 
I should say the 900 is out of the questions due to price. Obviously i'd love one. Been using the Sb-800's on my course and they seem pretty good, fairly easy to use too. How different are the 600's from the 800. You can't put an external battery pack on to the 600 can you?
 
The disadvantages, although not insurmountable of the 600 are:

1) Lack of built in bounce-card
2) Lack of pre-fit gels
3) No flash socket for external triggering (although obviously it still has CLS).

I've got two 900s and a single 600 which I still use regularly, it is a good bit of kit but the awkward controls (in the heat of battle so to speak) plus the above list would make me choose the 800 if I couldn't stretch to the 900.

However, if it was a case of 2x600 or another single flash then I'd go for the pair everytime. :)
 
Alternatively, if you're going to use RF-602s then why not just get a couple of SB-24 or 25s for less than the price of one SB-600...
 
I'll be going for an SB-24 or similar as my second flash. I do need one flash that I can use for press calls etc where my flash has to stay on camera pretty much and has to be easy to use.
 
Just a thought. If you're going manual, an easy route to power is to use two of the cheapo Yongnuo guns in tandem. Together the guide number jumps from 33 (I think that's right) to 46 - not bad at £70 for the two from Flash In The Pan. If you don't need the full power, turn them both down for faster recycling.

I think the built in slave would have no trouble synching up if you fire them both into a brolly so you wouldn't need an extra trigger, just a twin flash bracket. There are a few around, or DIY job.
 
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