Flashing on a budget

[hyakuhei]

Hi All,

Those of you who know me will know that I have been lucky enough to get on the books of a few local papers and I've been doing quite a bit of work for them over the last few weeks! (Thanks in no small part to advice I got on this forum)

I find myself in a situation where a) I have very little money and b) I very much need a flash.

All I really need is something that can throw a decent distance, can hook up to an external booster battery and will allow me to tilt and pan for bouncing. This is because I'm increasingly finding myself in pain-in-the-arse situations where the lighting is terrible and I could really do with some control!

I've seen a few flashes from no-name companies on ebay etc and LCE seem to have quite a few older flashes at the moment, I'm talking about the 540ez and similar...

So, do I go for an older "Genuine" flash or a newer no name one? my budget is all of about £50 ($100). - All to fit a 300D (With a view to upgrading to a 20D/30D in the next 3 months)

Cheers
-Rob

 

[Garbz]

Be very careful. Some of these flashes may have a trigger voltage which can fry your camera. If you do get one and you're in doubt, check the voltage of the centre point and the grounding bracket of the hotshoe connector. If it's more than 6V do not connect. Oh and I doubt most of these flashes will be capable of working with your camera's built in metre (E-TTL?) but you may find some that do.

 

[JIP]

This flash http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/61441-REG/Vivitar_233965_285HV_Auto_Flash.html combined with this website http://strobist.blogspot.com/ will give you a great start.

 

[Don Simon]

This flash http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...uto_Flash.html combined with this website http://strobist.blogspot.com/ will give you a great start.

:thumbup: The Vivitar 285 is a classic. You'll have to do most of the work, but IMO that is not a bad thing, and you won't get much better for £80. I would suggest you buy the new HV model, as the older versions may not be safe for the reason Garbz described.

Alternatively if you want TTL flash metering (but don't want to pay the price of a Canon flash) then the Sigma EF500 is a powerful flash with bounce and swivel for under £100. I use mine on manual anyway, so would probably still recommend going for the Vivitar which offers more manual control.

 

[hyakuhei]

Some great advice there thanks.

I think I will be needing something with E-TTL after all - If I'm shooting portraits or something I have control of then Manual mode is fine, in fact its preferred but sometimes I need to shoot with program mode or shutter priority because of the situation, that being the case I think an E-TTL might be a better idea....

 

[Don Simon]

In that case the Sigma is probably the cheapest and it's good value. Works with the proprietary TTL system for each camera system. Mine works very well on Pentax and I'm sure the Canon E-TTL version would be good too.