Yongnuo 565ex Help?

claytonh

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I suppose it's sticker shock that drives me away from the 580exII. I have been doing a good amount of reading about the YN-565ex and the reviews seem to be rather favorable (Speedlite.net gives it a great run). The price is enticing of course; I suppose most of my weary-ness falls back on "you get what you pay for" ya know ?

Reading customer feedback on Amazon, and EBay the reviews seem mixed, and there is a fair amount of talk about reliability / bulb failure.

What I'm searching for is field-tested opinion about the YN565ex. The specs talk it up, but I want to know if it really matches the light coverage (generally speaking, we can micro audit anything to death ) of the 580exII. I'd be using it for Wedding coverage. I detest buying things online, or otherwise not in-store because of the inherent risk taken. So before I give my hard earned money to Yongnuo, I want to make sure a) It's a worthwhile product, b) it's not going to take a steamy crap on my after a few hundred flashes, c) it's going to be a good buy for on-camera wedding use, d) I'm going to be happy with it.

I've looked at the Nissin Di866, and the Canon 430ex II as well. The Nissin comes in at around a Benjamin less than the 580, and the 430 just seems like I won't get the coverage I need for a Wedding primary flash. I know I'm going to get responses telling me just to go with the 580, and the little voice says your right, but again ... Public Safety salary + 580exII @ $500 ea. = a VERY hard purchase to stomach.
 
Any 3rd party flash unit, lens, vertical grip, battery, etc, has been reverse engineered. Canon, Nikon, Pentx, Sony, Olympus do not provide their proprietary information to 3rd party gear makers.

Consequently there can sometimes be incompatability issues, particularly issues with forward compatibility.
 
I own and use two of each; YN565EX and Canon 580EXII. The review on speedlite.net is a good one, and very accurate. No problems with failures or burned out bulbs or anything like that.

For now, on today's gear, YN565EX = 580EXII when it comes to light strength, color, reach, spread, build quality, features, etc., EXCEPT for high speed sync. The day you need that feature, you're going to wish you had the Canon, then you're going to have to work around it. Is that worth the extra $300 or so? I doubt it, but YMMV.

Controls are different, but easy to remember and use. The hot shoe lock is different but not a problem (YN is a screw-down wheel, Canon is a flip-switch). ETTL works just like the Canon, and they all fire each other with no problem. They accept and work with my external Canon battery packs for instant readiness and all-day shooting, and they have a pc sync port which I use from time to time. If you trigger with Radio Poppers, I've seen a way to get them to work with them, though I've not used it myself yet (I do use the poppers). Build quality seems equal to me.

Here's a couple of test shots on manual with a 5DMKII, same settings, full power, no PP or adjustments other than a resize and output to JPG from Lightroom:

580EXII
580EXII_0464.jpg


YN565EX
YN565EX.jpg


I personally think they're well worth the $300 per unit savings.
 

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