I am a college student and am looking to buy a flash on a budget. I shoot with a Sony alpha A100. Ideally, I would like a Canon Speedlite 430 EX but I am looking for something under $200 right now but that is decent for semi professional use. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice?
I use $90 Vivitar 285HV's for many paid shoots, but I use them, and the camera in manual modes, with no TTL.
Sony uses a unique hot shoe electrical contact arrangement (iISO) that does not have the trigger contact in the center of the hot shoe, seriously limiting your speedlight choices without the use of an adaptor, if there is one. Ergo, the Canon 430EX won't work, because it uses the standard ISO 518:2006 electrical contact layout.