Noel's Flash and Flash Accessory Buying Guide 2011

If you are looking to add a flash or two to your collection, here are some options for your Christmas list...

For Canon, you have two options:

Consumer-Canon 430EXII $400
Pro-Canon 580EXII $600

The basic differences, other than price, is the 580 is more powerful, has a strobe/mutlitflash mode, and can be used as a commander(will fire other off camera Canon flashes using wireless)
If you are thinking about getting into doing portraits or wedding, I'd spend the extra $$ and get the 580EXII. If you have a 7D or 60D, your pop-up flash can be a commander...otherwise you'll need to buy a 580EX to act as the commander and then another flash. Better to buy a different wireless system in that case(see below)

For Nikons, you now have a few more options...but not really...
The Nikon SB-600 might still be available, but since it doesn't show you the range of the flash on the back LCD, it's useless. SB-400 is a small crappy flash. Unless you can get the SB-600 for under $200, forget it.

These are the two you want:
Prosumer: Nikon SB-700 $400 <-THIS IS A GREAT FLASH FOR THE PRICE
Pro: Nikon SB-900 $539 <-AWESOME FLASH

Same as Canon, other than price, the SB900 is more powerful, has more modes, and again can be used as a commander. Now, with the Nikon's, if you have a COMMANDER built into your pop-up flash(which you would if you had a D70/D80/D90, D300s/D700, etc) you could get by with the SB700. SB900 also has a built in OPTICAL slave that can be triggered by any flash. The SB900 is probably the best flash you will ever own!

FLASH ACCESSORIES:
If you want to do more with your flash, here are some things you'd like to have:

OFF CAMERA FLASH CORD
This will allow you to take your flash off camera and get better lighting or more interesting lighting(top lighting, monster lighting...)

Nikon SC-28 $70


Canon OC-E3 Cord: $124

unfortunately, the Canon flash cord is only 2 feet long, pretty much useless...
A better option would be to grab one from www.flashzebra.com which has 3 foot and higher ones.


It's a great accessory to have so you can get shots like this:


WIRELESS FLASH
Another option for doing off camera flash is getting a wireless system. As mentioned above, if you have the higher end flash, you

THE BEST (AND MOST EXPENSIVE!)

POCKET WIZARD

Pros: These things work on radio signals, so they work through walls, outdoors, up to 1600 feet away!!!

Cons: EXPENSIVE.
You need one for the camera, and one for each flash. Unless you'd like to try this hack/mod/whatchamacallit I came up with

For most people, the PLUS II's are the option. They are $200 each.
If you want to do TTL with Canon, you can get the MINI TT1 transmitter $200 with the FLEX TT5 transciever $250 for each flash. Personally, I never use TTL with flash, so I would recommend the PLUS II's

There are other brands, but Pocketwizard is the standard for sure. There are also lots of cheap ones off E-Bay, with varying degrees of quality.

Another one that is pretty good is the Cactus series. No where near the range of the pocket wizards, but they'll work great for portraits/studio work. They run under $100 for a set that includes a transmitter and one receiver. You can buy extra receivers if needed.

FLASH UMBRELLA STAND
If you can do wireless flash, via the camera or with the pocket wizard, and want to do nice portraits, get this:

Nikon Umbrella Kit $189 Comes with big umbrella, heavy duty stand, and a case!


Or the cheaper version, the Wescott $80
FILTER HOLDER
If you like using filters(and have gotten that free pack of lee filters from me in class!!) you would like a filter holder.

Lumiquest FXtra $24.99

Pretty cool, it has a holder for the filters too!

With filters you can do cool shots like these:



FLASH MODIFIERS
There are an isane amount of modifiers to get better lighting with the flash.

Check out some of the various options here:
Garry Fong
Opus Easy-Go
Lumiquest



Happy Flashing!!!!
WHERE TO BUY
I am a big fan of buying local when possible, for a few reasons.

1) You are supporting a local business
2) If you have any problems, the local people are usually easier to deal with. Buying from an out of province/country dealer, if there is a problem, you will most likely have to pay to ship it back to them. There could also be warranty issues if buying from another country

if you are in Saint John, go to Appleby's, in Fredericton, head to Harvey Studios. Tell them Noel sent you!

If you want to buy online, Henrys in Toronto(also Halifax) is a great store that I've dealt with personally and for the Telegraph and had no issues with.

Avoid buying from ebay, unless it is from a reputable dealer. I've seen lots of "great deals" where you seem like you are getting a whole lot of extras...but in reality, it's a bunch of extra crap. bad lenses, crappy tripods, no name brand memory cards...not worth it.

If buying something off Kijiji or craiglist, make sure you try it out. If the seller won't let you try it out, that's a good warning sign...



Noel Chenier